“One of these days, Julia, he will kill you …”
But if she didn’t leave her room tonight, somewhere out in the forest or the streets, bleeding and alone, Lord Telyra might die.
Pushing open the door to her cell and setting one tentative foot on the stone staircase of the dungeon, she gazed up toward the crack of light above, asking herself what value she placed on her life, and his.
VIII: Show Me Hell
From out of a sea of blackness and pain, Andreas gasped for air, flooding his body with awareness. The earth was damp beneath his hands, gritty leaves slick with dirt clinging to his palms. Groaning, he strained one leaden eyelid open. Black boughs twisted overhead in a gnarled, creaking lattice, the sky caught between them like panes of clouded glass.
A sticky, crawling sensation crept along the back of his hand. He flicked it as hard as he could. The disgusting thing continued its progress, unfettered by his feeble efforts to dislodge it. Warm blood was pooling under his back, soaking through his clothes and getting colder by the minute.
Turning his hand over with some difficulty, he submerged the squirming leech. "You want it so bad? … Drown in my motherfucking blood.”
He gazed along the ground with his peripheral vision, straining his eyeballs—he couldn't turn his head. No sign of the road. No trace of Seleda either.
He’d always wondered if he would know when it was his time, or if he’d mistake the lethal wound for just another close call. Considering the casual way his assailants had ridden off, they probably hadn’t meant to kill him, but that made no difference now, did it? Whoever they were, they hadn't known about the wound in his back, throbbing like nails. Their attempt to slight him or intimidate him was going to rob him of his life.
… It was bullshit, of course. How many dozens of men had he fended off in the past twenty-four hours, hellbent on taking off his head? They hadn't succeeded. How could he survive Talystasia’s infernal war yet again, only for it to end like this, stupid, pointless, and alone?
He was getting colder, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. The blood seemed to be the surface of a deep, immeasurable ocean, the darkness of his consciousness cleaving through the earth as his life siphoned into the dirt.
Was anyone even looking for him?
Drafting up that will. That might've been a good idea after all.
I could’ve been the first Telyra in history to actually decide who will get my shit after I die. First and last.
His despairing laughter died in his throat, the grey darkness overhead fading into black. As the curtains of unconsciousness closed over him like coffin lids, old memories ascended up out of the gloom to watch over him, ghostly guardians at the crossroads of his passing.
~~~
—The clash and tinkle of cutlery and the sizzle of steak and ham echoed and rebounded off the walls in a mad cacophony. Wiping his brow, Andreas followed the head cook as she disappeared into a cloud of flour and smoke. The heat struck him full in the belly, stirring his gut into a roiling brew of nausea.
"Can't believe how long it’s been since you've been down here. Just did a floor to ceiling scrub last week; can you tell?"
A dozen fires flickered in enormous metal ovens set about the perimeter of the room, each one polished to a tidy, spotless shine. The walls and floor blazed a blistering, claustrophobic white. Noxious air tasting of sweat and brimstone rippled right through to his insides. His skin, it seemed, was no barrier at all.
He nodded noncommittally, swallowing his response in a mouthful of disgust.
"Really, the girls do work hard—" Celian assured him cheerfully.
The women and girls in question chopped industriously over cutting boards and turned aromatic meat on the stovetops, or scurried to and fro clearing the floor of debris before somebody else slipped and fell. None of them bothered to pause or glance up at him.
"How many hours a day …?" he inquired in tones of mesmerized horror.
"What? What’s that now?"
"How many hours a day do your staff work?"
"About fifteen, my Lord," she declared proudly, her fat red face breaking into a glistening grin. "Twelve here, and most of the girls do another three elsewhere."
Andreas tried to follow the conversation a moment longer, but her next words were drowned out by a bubbling roar from the cauldron in the center of the room. There was a girl crouched on the floor beside it in a dirty tan dress, one malnourished leg pulled up defensively against her chest, a dishrag in her idle hands.
She was staring intently at him, her lips hard and white with resentment, her brown eyes bloodshot with fury in an expression that couldn’t have been more wooden if it'd been carved out of beech. Coffee brown hair curled loosely around an oval face slick with sweat. A brass collar encircled her neck, the mark of her bondage.
Someone tossed a saucepan at her; it grazed harmlessly off her knee, crashing to the floor and scattering water droplets that mirrored the sweat on her body. Reaching out with one skinny arm, she grasped for it unseeing, her hate-filled eyes still fixed on him unwavering.
He pulled back, his cheek stinging as if she’d slapped it.
"Who is that?" he asked hoarsely, tearing his gaze away. He felt feverish; he wasn’t sure if it was the heat sweltering against his skin, violating his flesh, or the heat that’d risen in his cheeks.
"JULIA! Get back to work! Don't you know who this IS—" Celian shrieked, deafening him.
She sounded like a fucking teakettle. “Don't you know who I am,” he muttered under his breath.
One of the cooks dove in front of the slave and swiped at her ears. Dodging expertly, the emaciated girl snatched up her rag and fled to the back of the room, tripping over the fallen saucepan along the way. A cloud of smoke bloomed between them.
"That's Julia,” Celian grumbled, wringing her hands as Andreas lost sight of the girl. "... She'll be punished. Most of the girls aren't that lax—I'm so sorry she looked at you that way! That was totally inappropriate."
"I've never seen her before."
"... Well, she's always been here. It’s you who never is—if you’ll pardon me, Milord,” she put in hastily. “She's been washing dishes since she was old enough to lift a rag. Don’t waste no time—gotta get ‘em habituated young if you want to keep ‘em productive. Let ‘em go too long and they’re more liable to rebel."
Habituated. That was one word. Hardened was another.
"And how old was that?"
"About three maybe ...? I don't know."
"How old does that make her now?"
"Eleven, maybe twelve? How should I know? Who’s to say? Her parents are long dead. What's it matter? Aren't you—"
"I'd like her to stand in for my supper tonight."
"What—the—not the diplomatic supper, my Lord ...?"
Andreas stared at her expectantly. "Obviously."
“What do you want with a stupid little girl?”
“What I want,” he said warningly,“… is entirely my business.”
"My Lord ..." she broke in. "You really don't want that one! She's useless, really she is. Worthless. I'm so sorry for her behaviour—she should have been working. Believe me, later I’ll make sure she's—"
"Are you contradicting me, Celian?" he interrupted with a chilly smile.
"No, my Lord, I just don't think she's suitab—"
"Because if you are, it'll mean your job."
"But Jimon is already serving your supper tonight, my Lord. What about him?"
"Break his ankles, I don't care ...! Give him the night off, pay him as usual? Ever think of that? You stupid bitch. This place is a stinking hellhole—I'm docking your salary until it's fixed, and I'm getting the hell out of here."
"What's wrong with it? Is it not efficient, Milord?"
"Very."
"The food is good—"
"Yes."
"Clean—"
"As bones picked by a scavenger … today anyway. What'd it look like last week, before
you scrubbed it down? Oh yes—it's also very awful. This place is a nightmare."
"My Lord, most of these girls are slaves …”
"Yes, and five of them are freeborn. I counted. Their work conditions are atrocious. Are they working twelve hours a day ...? And why? Do we really have that many mouths to feed?"
"Milord, I don't really—"
"—This changes tonight. I'll hire more help if I need to. Not excluding your job—if I need to. So fix it. I'll be down here again in a week, and if you still want to be, you had better get this together."
As he departed he glanced back through the scalding smoke.
He found her scrunched against a cabinet in the corner—a dirty, wispy shadow of a girl, almost thin enough to disappear. Her grip loosened on the rag when she saw him, then she squeezed it in a hard, angry fist. But her face betrayed her; her lips parting softly. There was vulnerability there. Vulnerability and hate.
Walking away, he smiled.
~~~
—"Ow!" cried Julia, the knife clattering down. Blood dripped on the counter. Clutching her finger, she skipped around the bruising fruit rinds that littered the floor, making for the nearest sink.
"Julia ..." came Celian's voice from behind.
She swung around, nursing her wounded hand. “What.”
Celian’s fleshy face twitched, one fat, akimbo arm streaked in flour grinding a ham-like fist into her hip. In the other she clutched a huge silver tray loaded with covered dishes.
Without warning, she thrust the platter bruisingly into her stomach. "Take that to the dining hall,” she ordered as Julia winced. “But be quick about it, no dilly dallying—and do have a care and stop bleeding on the food; can't you even dice those damn potatoes, girl?—Set it on the table in the dining room and then wait there for the guests. I sent the rest of the food ahead of you, cause you’re a fucking screw-up."
"Huh—?" interrupted Julia, straightening the tray. "I don't understand. I en't on the waitstaff—"
"—Someone more competent than you has already set the places. Stay out of the way, and behave.”
“In the dining room?”
“—But if someone asks you to bring them something, do it of course. Don't talk to anyone, don't look at anyone. These are visiting dignitaries and their staff you'll be serving. One of them’s the King of Alacia. These are people, Julia. I don’t need you screwing it up. Do you realize I've already lost half my paycheck this week thanks to you and your miserable antics?”
"But where's Jimon ... ? And—er ... you lost half your paycheck cause I was shirking ...? That's bullshit! I en’t got nothin’ to do with you losing your pay."
"—You're a very foolish, headstrong girl, Julia!" Celian smacked her lightly upside the head. "Remember that. Remember how nice I've been to you ... none of the other girls felt the need to stare. Just do your job... might I remind you of the master's temperament."
She flushed with dizziness not brought on by the heat. She had an almost overpowering urge to hurl the platter to the ground, smashing the dishes to smithereens. "Will the mas—"
"Scooch! Hurry up now."
Celian pushed her backwards, toward the door and the cool, unsullied air of the hall. Bewildered, she skidded over a potato peel on her way out of the kitchen and scampered down the length of the hallway to the dining room, her pulse racing.
She passed the dining chamber with its copiously painted walls almost every day, but she’d never once been inside. Being summoned here wasn’t just unusual, it was exceptional.
Telyra never came down to inspect the kitchen. That she should see him not once, but twice, in a single day, was unprecedented. What was going on?
"… Room eighteen," she murmured, stepping inside.
The dining hall seemed to engulf her, its warmth and novelty sweeping her out of the mundane. The burgundy carpet under her bare feet was soft and luxurious. The only furnishing was a long polished wood table set with a burgundy runner and surrounded by high-backed chairs. An iron chandelier blazed overhead, the flames reflecting in the shining silver bubbles of the covered dishes below, so that the surface of the table seemed alive with glittering crystal, molten metal and dancing flame. Gingerly she deposited her tray amongst the others, withdrawing toward the back of the room.
The murals spanned from floor to ceiling, divided by rosewood trim, their cool, shadowy, viridian colours contrasting vividly with the rich warmth of the carpet and the wood. A party of noble hunters pursued painted quarry from frame to frame, bedecked in the blue of House Telyra. Animal faces peeked down from the branches, seemingly alive in the shifting orange light.
Telyra.
It had been five or six years ago one afternoon in the foyer that she’d first had the epiphany that the inequity of her life was tied to some purpose. Peering down the flanking corridor she had beheld a tall, red-haired figure at the other end, his features and body a blur in the drafty gloom. She hadn't thought twice of it, until—
"That's the master," stated Beata, an older slave who was helping her to roll up the carpet.
"What's the master doing here?"
"What do you mean?" Beata dropped the carpet, laughter flickering across her face. "He ... lives here," she crowed. "Where'd you think he lived? Why do you think we're here?"
She hadn’t known how to answer her. The revelation had been calamitous. This fortress she toiled in had a purpose, and that purpose was of all things … a person. Sure, "the master" was a name she knew as well as her own, but it had been an empty concept, a faceless abstraction—someone or something unimaginably far-flung from her reality. But this figure down the hallway was a human being, wasn’t he? Simple, stupid, fallible. Yet for some unfathomable reason, fate had decreed that this man, whoever he was, should hold her life in his hands.
Over time she formed a vivid mental image of the oppressor who never bothered to acknowledge her existence, even though she lived to serve his, preparing each day the very food that sustained him. The glow of his hair like an inverted torch as he faded from view was all she had ever known of him—until now.
What was she doing in here …?
What did it mean?
Sinking into the shadows, she spotted Jimon lurking in the opposite corner.
"Jimon! What are you doin' here?" she hissed. "… Thought you must've had the night off or something."
"Thought I did too. But then she sent someone up to get me, sayin' 'twas foolish to leave you here on your own, and that it couldn't do no harm like."
"Well that's good. But I got no idea why I'm even—"
She drifted off, her attention riveted to the doors.
The first glittering guest had already arrived, a woman wearing a long, flowing gown that sparkled in the candlelight, a fur mantle resting over her shoulders. Her hair was bound up on her head in a silver netting, a thin but elaborate circlet adorning her glamorous forehead. As she was preparing to take her seat, a handsome man with an emerald crown and a green velvet doublet took her arm and pulled out her chair.
An older man entered next, accompanied by two liveried servants. His face was creased in wrinkles, his dark hair lined with snowy streaks of white. On his head was a marvellous crown, a towering series of spikes cascading with precious gems. His doublet shimmered with a wonderful iridescence.
These people were rich. Richer than anything she’d ever seen, anything she’d ever imagined, their jewels easily outshining even the fine silver and crystal that glittered on the tabletop.
Three more servants entered the room, followed by a lavishly dressed lady, her gown a form-fitting sheath of scarlet. As her servants took their seats nearby, Julia’s jaw dropped. Their silks were almost as luxuriant as those that adorned their beautiful mistress—and with bemused disenchantment, she realized their uniforms were probably worth more on the market of exchange than her own life.
And then heat surged through her veins, her fists clenching in wrath—
… For a tall, middle-aged man had e
ntered the room. His uniform was the same as any of his men's, a blue, long-sleeved tunic designed for warmth and ease, matching leggings, a heavy leather belt, and severe brown boots. No decoration or sign of rank was needed: the gold circlet on his head was symbol enough—the legendary circlet of a lord of Talystasia.
When he took his seat, he sat noticeably taller than most of the people gathered around him.
… A snapping sound drew her back to full awareness. The lady with the fur mantle was glaring at her contemptuously, her fingers raised, her painted nails reflecting the light.
“Hello?” she called, snapping again. “I asked you to serve me?”
For a moment, she didn’t move, still paralyzed by sheer wonder at the extravagance gathered around her. Scooting over, she felt utterly terrified. These people were so poised, and just being near them made her feel as if her skin didn't fit quite right. The dazzling radiance of the table and the guests was like the blinding light of the sun. And here she was in the dark, on the outside.
And there was the master … perhaps three yards away.
It should've been obvious that he was a mere mortal now that she could see him up close, but somehow, it wasn't. Hatred burned in her stomach like coals, and her hands shook as she retrieved the requested bowl and presented it to the imperious lady. Even the scar across his eye seemed a mark of distinction instead of an imperfection. And somehow, the dazzling light didn’t seem to touch him either.
He was on the outside.
The old man at his elbow with the towering crown swigged deeply from his mug of ale. They had, it seemed, been at their talk for a while, even before entering the room. "Why don't you let Alacia lend her support ...?"
The master didn't answer. He only looked on with a faint smile.
"With all due respect, Lord Telyra, Loren is gaining the advantage on you," the king insisted. "Just last week you lost an entire battalion—"
"—Oh, I think not," Telyra interrupted politely.
"What ...?"
"I think not," he repeated, and that was all he said. His voice was a clear, cold tenor. The king, ale still glistening in the stubble of his beard, shrugged.
Talystasia: A Faerytale Page 16