by S E Zbasnik
“Squire,” Gavin said, his voice unreadable. She couldn’t tell if he was mad, or worried, or understood, or was trying to buy time for the hunters to claim her. Hayley trembled at this precipice, like dangling off a rope over a bear-pit of stakes — each choice was certain to send her to her death.
“Show me,” he said. Hayley sucked in her tears and whipped her head back and forth. No. It wasn’t there. It was never there. It’s all some awful nightmare.
“Show me,” he repeated again, his mighty hand clamping down on her thin shoulder. She couldn’t fight him off, she couldn’t rip herself free, she couldn’t even run.
Slowly, both Hayley and Gavin pulled herself away from her thigh. At first, his eyes took in the bandage. Maybe that was all he wanted, to-to know she was okay. But then they began to rise higher, taking a detailed note of the scar forever embedded into her flesh. Gavin’s breath drew shallow, his lips falling slack in contemplation.
She needed an excuse, an explanation, an answer, but her brain was broken. All this time, all those battles, all of his lofty talk of how he believed in her, and he was staring in shock as if he let a plague-ridden rat into his life.
“I see,” Gavin said, his tongue darting to cracked lips before he turned on his heel and vanished out of the tent.
“No!” Hayley cried, her anguish drenched in tears. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know what she was doing! She was just a…just a child. It wasn’t fair.
None of it was fair.
That cruel reminder was burned into her flesh to tell her that she belonged to someone else. She was just a body to do work, never meant for love or friendship. Even as she ran, even as she faded into the city, it was always there. Whenever she’d bathe, her fingers would curl over the mark mocking her pathetic attempts at freedom. At thinking she could ever belong to herself. As if she deserved it.
Through the mass of tears, Hayley doomed herself and fully unearthed her slave mark. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t hide it and she couldn’t run either. A few people stood outside the tent, their silhouettes barely moving as they reminded the girl that there was nowhere for her to go. No way for her to run.
For five years she had no idea what was burned into her flesh. It was just symbols, a couple of circles and lines to the illiterate child, but now she recognized it. BD — those were the initials of her owner, whoever he was. And if she could read it, then they could read it too. That was where they’d ship her off to, that was who they’d give her back to. That’s where she’d be chained and beaten for running. That’s where she’d die.
Movement ripped Hayley away from her mark. Gavin stepped back into the tent, but there was no one else at his side. No armed guards followed, nor did he extend his sword at her throat. Maybe he knew he didn’t need to, that she was trapped in the worst mistake of her life.
Folding to his knees, Gavin opened a small box he brought with. She expected there to be chains, but Hayley watched in confusion as he lifted up a long piece of wood, maybe an inch wide, and began to slowly shove sewing needles into the tip.
“I can explain!” she shouted. His amber eyes darted over to her and all of her buried truth came spilling out. “It’s not from… I’m not one of the bad ones. I-I ran, because I didn’t understand what was happening. If I knew, if they’d told me what’d happen then I wouldn’t have been bad. I’d have stayed where they sold me like I was supposed to!”
“Hayley,” Gavin whispered, but she was broken the way a beaten dog was. All her eyes saw were dangers coming to rip her to pieces.
“Please!” she cried, awash in tears, “please don’t…don’t…” Don’t do what you have to. Don’t do what the law requires of you. Don’t do what everyone else would do without a single thought.
His head hung down causing her to squeeze her eyes tight. A fresh wave of tears scattered from that, but to her surprise, Gavin caught them in a kerchief. He dabbed at both cheeks before swiping under her nose as if she was a lost toddler who wandered in from the cold.
“You’ve seen the mark I have, here?” Gavin pointed to his chest right where that black symbol rested near his heart. Hayley bobbed her head even as she stumbled in the darkness.
“It’s permanent, made from ink buried under the skin using something like this.” He lifted up the wood spiked in needles. A good ten of them formed an almost half circle on the end, which he bounced into the palm of his hand.
“Okay?” Hayley gulped.
“Knights often get them, tattoos they’re called, from far lands during our travels. Most wouldn’t think anything of you wearing one.”
“I don’t…” She couldn’t understand what he wanted. To cover her in ink? To prepare her for the hunters?
Gavin licked his chapped lips as he took in a slow breath. In a voice that barely broke a whisper, he said, “A tattoo would cover over any unwanted marks you have on your body. It would…hide them away, forever.”
Hide…? Hayley’s eyes darted to her scar, then back up to him as if she hadn’t looked. He wanted her to hide, to-to not be found by the hunters. Forever?
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Gavin asked softly. He wouldn’t say the words, couldn’t admit that he was hiding away a slave mark, but he placed the tip of the needle-coated wood right to the edge of Hayley’s scar.
Slowly, she nodded, her nose sucking back in all the shed tears.
A smile dawned on his cheeks as Gavin plucked out an ink bottle. He dipped the needles into the black liquid, coating each one. Placing a steadying hand to Hayley’s thigh, he let the tool rest right above her skin.
“This might sting for a while,” he said just before bouncing ten ink-tipped needles into her flesh. Hayley winced but didn’t leap away. As he made more lines, bounding the ink into her skin, she got a good grasp on the pain. It was when he managed a full four lines, and paused to wipe the runoff away, that Hayley gasped.
Where once had been an undeniable white mark burned into her skin by the hunting monsters was now a black line hiding away her past. Gavin paused, concerned at her reaction, but she smiled.
“Keep going,” she encouraged and he drew more lines, all of them coming to circle around her scar.
“What would you want on it?”
“Hm?”
“Mine has a, uh, griffin with a snake in its talons,” he almost sounded embarrassed saying it aloud but Hayley smiled. She thought that it’d just be a mass of black, not some important symbol pressed over her white brand.
As Gavin mopped up the last of the ink run-off, Hayley twisted her head this way and that to get a sense of her thigh. “A vulture,” she said the moment the idea popped into place.
“A vulture? That’s a rather ominous choice.”
Death hounded her every step, eclipsed the sun in its skeletal shadow and sent her fleeing from the light. She was tired of the running. Tired of the hiding.
With a smile rising up her cheeks, Hayley added, “Being strangled by a snake.”
It took quite a bit of time, the sun setting and requiring Gavin to find candles to finish his work. They didn’t talk much, her knight hunched over and smacking needles into her skin, and Hayley watching in awe as ink wiped away the curse that’d seemed permanent. When he finished, after one last wipe of her welled up blood and spilled ink, she gazed in wonder at a somewhat blocky vulture and a sort of snake/scarf hanging off its neck.
“You’ll need to keep it clean. About on par with your other wound. Hopefully, most won’t ask too many questions given your injury.” He paused in cleaning off his hands, the fingerprints outlined in ink, as he caught Hayley staring in awe at her thigh.
You couldn’t tell. Even knowing it was under there, that those who’d hunt for it would search harder than anything, all she saw was the vulture on its death bed. It blended in, the vulture’s neck forming the upper part of the B while the snake slithered around to hide where the D connected it together.
“Hayley,” the rough voice cracked near as Gavin’s
ink-smeared hand landed on her shoulder. “Are you…?”
“It’s perfect,” she cried, tears bursting from her eyes. A breath raised up her chest higher than it had been in years. Free of the shackles that lurked in every shadow, she wanted to leap up and run. Not away, not to hide, just in glee.
Gavin’s smile turned sheepish, the man who spent half the night with his hand on a teenager’s thigh staggering to his feet and away from her. “Remain here to sleep, for the night. Walking is ill-advised, especially given your other wound. I’ll find you in the morning to help transfer you over to our tent.”
“What about the tourney?” Hayley gasped.
“We’ll take it one day at a time. There are many rounds of squires to get through, so you should have a few days to rest and grow your strength.” The smile on his lips warmed her guts even more. With the borrowed tattoo box in his hands, Gavin stepped towards the medical tent flap.
Hayley twisted over to the candles, about to snuff them out. Before he slipped out into the night, Gavin said, “Be careful.” That paused her, the girl’s wary eyes snapping back in an instant. “They say tattoos are highly addictive.” With that last bit of advice, her knight left. No doubt he had friends to carouse with, an entire day in the sun to prepare for, and an itinerary to reschedule without a squire.
Licking her fingers, Hayley snuffed out two candles but paused at the last one. Picking it up, she darted the flame close to the still shiny ink glittering like onyx below her skin. She was safe.
Her finger foolishly darted around the circle edge bearing the same motto inside of Gavin’s. The one that formed the backbone of the Order and tied them all together.
We Are One.
She was chosen.
Hayley blew out the candle, the last sputter of smoke twisting through the indigo night. Bonfires called out from all edges of the tent, people laughing and dancing to commemorate the first day of the tournament. Turning on her side, Hayley placed a comforting and protective hand beside both the wound she took in the fight and the tattoo gifted to her.
She was wanted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“How can anyone see out of this?” Hayley twisted the massive helmet around on her head. A metal spike protruded off the top making the spinning easier, but it also put her in mind of a unicorn. The shopkeep was less than happy when she kept calling it the magical unicorn helmet.
“Here.” Gavin grabbed onto the outside. She couldn’t see much of him beyond a few horizontal slits. It might protect the wearer’s face, but you’d be worthless in a fight while trapped inside it. Using his magical knight powers, he shifted some parts of the helmet up, yanked others down and suddenly Hayley could see. Not far, and not like an eagle, but she definitely spotted the glare of the helmet seller eyeing up the squire who couldn’t appreciate such craftsmanship.
Yanking the helmet off, Hayley passed it to Gavin who gently returned it to the rack. She raced her fingers under her cap, trying to wick away the sweat that built up in the few minutes she was trapped inside that thing.
“I am guessing that’s not your style.” Her knight snickered as the pair resumed their lap around the market.
For the past few days, most of Hayley’s time was spent healing. She was let out of the medical tent almost immediately for greener pastures, but she was often left sitting. Gavin told her to join with the audience and cheer on her friends. While Hayley didn’t know of any friends she had fighting, she did sit with Ania and watch. The squires were being worked through fast; already most of the first rounds were weeded out. Soon she’d have to fight, though she suspected her knight had finagled some deal to give her as much healing time as possible.
Bored out of her skull, when she said she wanted to walk the markets just to see something other than men and women in sweaty armor, she didn’t expect Gavin to come along. He’d been constantly on her about changing her bandages, cleaning the wound. Sometimes he even wondered what the composition and color of her pus was. It was damn near maddening to have someone that invested in her ripped up flesh.
“What are those?” Hayley asked pointing at a stand filled with various cylinders smoothed at the end. Some were made of wood, others stone. The ones on the highest shelves, meaning most expensive, looked like they were carved from ivory and even had glints of gold.
Her knight tugged on the low neckline of his tunic and shifted. “That is…something for you to ask another.” Sweat beads the size of hornets dribbled off his forehead, the man’s wide eyes whipping around anywhere but at Hayley.
“So it’s dirty?” she asked, noticing it was mostly women crowding around the stand.
“Extremely,” Gavin coughed out. “Ah, what about here?” He reached for anything to distract her. Happy to be out and about, and not have her stomach combust in embarrassment, Hayley followed suit.
Her knight stumbled upon a row of, what else, swords. But these weren’t like the utilitarian, so cheap they’d slice your palms open ones in the arena. These were pretty swords. Jewels shined in cross guards, intricate etchings ran up and down the blade. Hayley extended her fingers above them, too terrified to touch.
Watching her closely, Gavin asked, “Have you put much thought to what you’d do with the purse if you were to win?”
“Purse?” She flinched. “What purse? I thought anything I did went back to you.”
He smiled at her foolishness. “The winning squire in their class receives a generous amount of gold. Not as great as the knight’s, but not anything to wipe your nose at either.”
“Oh,” Hayley shrugged to herself, “I dunno. Give it to you? You know for…”
“Nonsense, it’d be yours earned justly. To do with however you wish.” He parted his hand around the somewhat buzzing marketplace. A few minor jousts were happening, mostly for show, but it did clear the area out unlike when the arena was in-between attractions.
Hayley scraped at the back of her ear, feeling a burn rising along her neck and skyward. Money was this thing that existed for other people. They earned it, they used it, they kept it, they traded it. She just lived. To have something of her own, something she bought…
“Merciful Lo—” Hayley muttered before swallowing down the rest of the curse. Her wandering eyes landed upon the most beautiful longsword she ever saw. The crossguard swooped up towards the blade, speckles of steel and jade rising from it like scales, and the very ends opening up like a snake’s mouth about to strike. Sturdy leather wrapped around the grip, which slotted into her palm like it was made just for her.
Hayley gave it a quick swish through the air, the balance perfect. She spun it backwards, eyeing up the pommel which was formed like the head of a mace. That’d sure hurt to get whacked with. Something this gorgeous and well crafted had to cost all the coin. She shouldn’t even be touching it.
Fear almost caused her to place the blade down, but her fingers clamped on tighter. The first two didn’t want to give it up. The cushioning, god it made her pads feel pampered.
“That is a nice blade,” Gavin observed as if she pointed out a horse in a field.
“Yeah,” Hayley bobbed her head uncertainly, “but…way too much for me. For someone like me.”
Finally, she released her hold, letting the sword return to rest beside the others. She’d never noticed swords before. That they existed sure, that they could be used to skewer her definitely. But lusting after one, wanting to trail her pinkie along its edges, to polish and clean it until it gleamed…it felt invigorating.
“That is something you would put your winnings to?” Gavin asked above her.
Hayley shrugged. “Sure. I mean, assuming I do win, which is a pretty big one and all.” She’d been walking with barely a limp, but being able to move up and down a few rows of booths while slowly shuffling wasn’t the same as fighting in a ring with another squire.
She turned, about to suggest that they move on, but Gavin’s sight was trailing deep into the crowd. Before Hayley could ask what caught his at
tention, her harried knight called to her, “Can you…you don’t need me around.”
“No,” she said slowly.
“I’m going to, have to attend to a matter. Nothing major, just a minor, um…”
“Matter?” she asked as Gavin began to scoot further away. He kept glancing back at Hayley as if afraid she might suddenly shout at him, but all of his attention was on whatever caught his attention in the crowd.
“You will be fine, Squire,” Gavin announced like she had to be told that. Hayley thought he’d stuck by her side in order to watch her, to keep her from stealing anything. But without a second look, he dashed into the crowd. Seemed she was fine on her own after all.
Wandering without too much aim, Hayley browsed a few simpler wares. She’d been gifted a couple coins by Gavin to spend wisely. After snagging a small, palm-sized raspberry pie, Hayley was mulling over an array of knitted kerchiefs. One, in particular, was dyed a striking maroon, which Ania was sure to like. Her fingers ran over the wool, softer than butter, when a voice struck her to the core.
Hayley spun away from the wares to spot Finn in that same idiotic, yellow-ruffled outfit he wore to impress the nobles. This time he stood before a medium sized stand, babbling on about the sturdy nature of the horse beside him. Whoever he was trying to impress remained neutral and, not getting what he wanted out of the deal, wandered away. Finn sneered with his whole face and shot a rude gesture behind the man’s back.
In that mood and fully thrown off kilter was probably the worst time to talk to him. Hayley approached the boy. “Does that help increase sales?”
Finn yelped, full on leapt into the air and did a twist to eye up the girl standing at the side of his little booth. “Hay…Hayseed. What are you…aren’t you supposed to be knighting things or whatever it is you do?”