“There are a hundred different reasons why friendship is as far as things go for us. So... So that's how it has to be.” She withdrew, and rose elegantly to her feet, rearranging her skirts to maintain modesty. “I'll make it up to you. I'm going to be alone in my tent for a few days,” the awkward sentence carefully skirted who would be leaving her alone, “which means I can invite you to be my guest for dinner tomorrow night. I have a wonderful chef, and wine, I promise. Say you'll come.”
“What choice do I have when my Lady commands it?” I said, sick to my stomach.
The next twenty-two hours passed in a blur of heartache and dejection. I took very little notice of anything beyond the absolute minimum my duties demanded. Then I shaved and dressed myself in my finest. Standard Angian Guard uniform, because I had nothing else. I showed up at her doorstep just as the camp bell sounded eight o'clock. Her manservant showed me inside and never showed a hint of expression as he took my blue cloak and jacket. The studied mask did a good job of hiding his contempt for a fellow commoner intruding upon his domain. Having to serve a member of the rabble was a mortal insult.
Nerell was a vision, whenever the black cloud of her marriage wasn't hanging over her. She wore a deep purple-violet gown with the vine and cup of her house embroidered on the front. A gown which shouldn't have suited her, not with her pale skin and angular Aranic features, and yet it clung perfectly to both ample hips and small bosom.
Maybe love biased me, making me see perfection where I wanted to. Same difference.
I froze in place and forgot everything while I watched her. I'd never seen her in candlelight, and even though we'd spent time shoulder to shoulder in the forest, the intimacy of this moment pierced me like an arrow to the gut. Only a brusque clearing of the manservant's throat got me moving again.
I stumbled to my seat at the table and stood behind it. “You look wonderful...” I stopped myself short of using her name in the manservant's presence. “Milady.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” she giggled. “Please, let us sit.”
She waited for me to pull her chair out for her. I felt her shoulder brush up against the back of my hand, and cursed myself for the way it sent my heart racing. I never felt this nervous around a lowborn woman. Maybe I was addicted to the danger, the chase, the forbidden fruit, the not knowing. I seated myself and availed myself of the wine she'd offered.
It was pure delight encased in glass. It sparkled and fizzed its way down my throat, and the flavour it left behind was exquisite, well beyond my ability to describe. The sour, yeasty grape juice I'd drunk all my life didn't begin to compare.
My reaction must've showed, because Nerell smiled bright as the setting sun. “I'm glad you like it. The food might be even better.”
As if on cue, the starter plates were brought in from outside by several young Feldlandic slaves, under the judgemental eye of Her Ladyship's manservant. Plates of smoked meats and cheeses, roasted cactus pears from the Harari steppe, and some kind of cold soup or porridge which smelled like marrow but tasted more of mixed berries with a heavy hit of cinnamon. To my surprise, I liked every strange, exotic flavour they offered.
Our conversation stayed light and meaningless. Nerell seemed utterly at home in this setting, and she slid into the role of dinner party hostess as if she were born to it. She could make small talk about absolutely nothing at all. I was happy to let her put in most of the time. With my stomach tying itself in passionate knots, I couldn't really bring much to the table.
Soon it came time for the main course. The manservant took away my half-full wine glass before I could protest, only to replace it with a different vintage. No sparkle in this one, but if anything it was more delicious than the first. Richer, fuller, bolder. I attacked it, as did Nerell.
“This is my favourite,” she confessed, and sipped so frequently and so deeply it bordered on unladylike. “They make it along the southern border, growing our grapes in Feldland's soil. The best of both worlds.”
The manservant pointedly presented the bottle to me so I could look at the label, as if I were a noble guest. Another gesture of his disapproval. He probably didn't think I could read.
“Castell Renderholt,” I said, and smiled at the man's sour, pinched expression. “Very fine. Thank you.”
The night wore on much the same. I took a lot more wine than usual to avoid having to talk. Anything I said might betray my feelings, and that couldn't happen while we weren't alone. It was torture to be so close to her and so far away at the same time. Why did I accept the invitation? Why did I put myself through this?
Oh yes. Because she told me to.
The servants cleared away the remains of the main course, and I realised I couldn't remember what it had been. Some kind of fish? My thoughts were all adrift, and the wine wasn't helping as much as I would've liked.
Little thumbles of coffee accompanied the berries-in-cream dessert, imported fresh from Leora and poured by a devastatingly pretty Harari girl in a dancer's outfit of loose-fitting silk. She apparently doubled as entertainment. No sooner had she placed the cups on their saucers than she started to undulate her way around the tent, whipping her veils this way and that, lilting out foreign melodies in a high, reedy voice. Pleasant to listen to, and I did my best not to dwell on the collar or the visible brand on the back of her hand.
Lord Arbordown liked to remind his slaves who they belonged to, and to show off his property at the same time. I didn't want to think about what he did with them in private.
There was a dessert wine, too, but Nerell told her manservant to leave it on the table and take the rest of the night off. He almost argued. Leaving the mistress alone with a lowborn rogue like me was anathema to him. He bowed and left, shaking with repressed irritation. The Harari dancer soon followed him out.
“That was nice, wasn't it?” She beamed a smile and waved at me to pour. I took the bottle in less-than-steady hands and sloshed some soft green wine into both glasses. It made me realise exactly how drunk I was. “It's little pleasures like this that keep me sane.”
“It's... It was lovely, Milady,” I replied. Master of polite conversation, me.
“Not 'Milady.' Please. We're alone now.”
Another sip of wine for both of us. Slight hesitation as she brought the glass up to her lips, and her cheeks had a definite rosy glow to them. She, too, was a little ways beyond tipsy. The look she gave me was anything but innocent, though she kept a leash on it.
“Byren, I really have to ask, is that the same shirt you've been wearing to the forest every day?”
A self-conscious flush crept up my neck as I looked down. “It's my shirt, Mi‒ Nerell.”
“You mean...” Horror dawned on her face. “You only have the one?”
I nodded. It was standard issue for the regiments of the Regular Army. Levies got even less, and could count themselves lucky if they had a sharp stick to fight with.
Nerell almost forgot the glass in her hands, and put it down half a moment before she managed to spill it all over herself. She rose and rounded the table to take my hands. “Come with me.”
I let her lead me through the curtain which partitioned the tent into bedroom and dining room-study. It was a conflicted space. Clearly Nerell arranged most of it, with flowers and knick-knacks and airy curtains, a ladies' dressing table and satin bedsheets. However, her husband staked his claim by way of the hunting trophies hung from the tent supports, and in the corner, a rack of fashionable swords for any occasion. All pretty pieces. All wasted on a gutless peacock like Arbordown.
Two massive wardrobes occupied most of the space beside the four-poster bed. Filled with drunken courage, Nerell threw open the one on the right and began to pull out every kind of fine clothing known to man. Silk shirts and hose, slashed velvet breeches, doublets and jackets of fabric I didn't even recognise, lined with gold thread and embroidery... She let out a little a-ha as she found what she was looking for. A hunting blouse, such a deep green it was almost black, wh
ich tied shut on the front with velvet laces in a brighter emerald colour. She held it up against me as if I were a mannequin. Staring, I had to admit it went well with my black uniform trousers and leather marching boots.
“Put it on,” she said in the voice of a queen, and I was powerless to resist.
My slightly threadbare shirt dropped to the floor. She looked away to hide another pretty blush, and I was no less self-conscious. I slipped her husband's blouse over my head and let it settle. Tight around the chest and narrow in the shoulders, too small for me compared to Lord Arbordown's lanky build. It reached just far enough down to cover all of me. Nerell inspected me with a critical eye, and gingerly reached out to fasten the laces. I froze as her fingers brushed against my chest. My heart fluttered faster than a moth's wings around the candle.
Our eyes met as she tried to knot the laces at the top. Another hesitation. They slipped from her fingers, letting my blouse fall open again. Her pupils were so wide they covered almost the whole iris, and I could see the whites all around. Hard, shallow breaths made her chest bob up and down.
“We‒” she stammered, “we should‒”
By some sudden spark, some unspoken agreement, we collided. Taste of her lips like lavender and honey. Arms wrapped fiercely, needily around my shoulders, clung to me as if I were the only bit of flotsam on a stormy sea. Tears glistened on her cheeks as we inched towards the bed. Her dress slid down her body in a silk waterfall, and there was nothing but skin underneath.
She sank onto the bed. Trembled as my hands ran up and down her soft, smooth legs, and parted them. I kissed my way up the gentle curve of belly, found a nipple, made her arch as I suckled it. Shared, shuddering gasp as we fit together.
I thought I'd known love before, but here, the way she looked at me now, I couldn't have been more wrong. This was the purest, most passionate thing I'd ever experienced. We moved as one, in ecstatic harmony.
I wanted this moment to last forever.
My hands were clenched into iron-hard fists as the sergeant-major pushed me along. I didn't want them to know about the balled-up scarf in my left palm. If they knew, they might take it away from me. I wouldn't let them. No matter what, they wouldn't break me.
The cross waited for me in the middle of the parade ground. They forced my arms over the bar, then tied them down tight so I didn't have an inch of wiggle room. It'd keep me from collapsing to avoid the rest of my strokes.
All the men of the Angian Guard stood assembled in ranks to watch. An object lesson about the consequences of having ideas above one's station. My platoon would be out there somewhere. I couldn't find them in the sea of faces. Would they feel sympathy, or nothing but disgrace?
I didn't know how the truth had gotten back to Lord Arbordown. It didn't really matter. My affair with Nerell had gone on for almost two weeks, spending our evenings by the creek wrapped up in each other on top of a blanket, or in her bed. I took a perverted kind of pride in satisfying her more, and more often, than her husband had in the better part of a decade. It'd been a constant glowing dream, worth any kind of flogging they could throw at me.
She even snuck in to see me in secret, in my cell. The powder on her face couldn't quite hide the bruises. Every blemish on her skin burned itself into my memory, so I could make Arbordown pay for each one. She held a small white scarf in her hands, bearing the vine and cup, which she used to dab at the tears streaming down her face. Abject anguish filled her eyes when she looked at me.
“I'm sorry.” She thrust the scarf through the bars, into my hand.
“Nerell, I‒”
“I love you,” she choked out, and fled before I had a chance to say it back.
Marching drums hammered as Lord Arbordown appeared with his officer friends in tow. They all rode their pretty horses, and didn't bother to do me the courtesy of dismounting. The sergeant-major waited beside me for the order, lash in hand. His face could've been carved out of solid stone.
“Proceed.”
Ear-splitting crack as the whip-tail rent the air and snaked into my flesh.
The first one hurt more than the time I took a Ducal spear through my calf at Henniswick. The second was worse, and each one after that compounded the exquisite agony, slicing another searing hot line down my back. The fresh running blood felt cool by comparison.
Somewhere around the count of twenty, I began to laugh. A sharp, delirious cackle that echoed all through the parade ground, making the lines of troops fidget nervously. This was not how these things usually went. Arbordown fumed with quiet rage, but the flogging continued, and I gripped her scarf so tight I worried I might crush it to dust. She loved me. She loved me!
They paused at seventy-five lashes. Poured some water over me, and forced my head around to face Arbordown. I searched his eyes, and despite all his anger and indignation, I saw how little this really meant to him. Wounded pride. Nothing more.
“Confess,” he said, like a man trying to force his will unto the ant under his boot. “We may decide to grant you leniency.”
Fuck your leniency, I thought, but knew better than to say it aloud.
The lashes resumed. Bloody foam started to drip through my clenched teeth and down my chin, but I held. Another peal of laughter bubbled out of my stomach. The Guardsmen all around stared at me with strange expressions. Their eyes watered in sympathy. Many of them couldn't bear to look, until their sergeant would roar at them to keep all eyes front. This 'lesson' wasn't intended just for me.
The sergeant-major counted a hundred and fifty strokes, and all done. The Guardsmen gratefully marched away back to their bivouacs. Only officers and their personal bodyguards remained behind, along with the man who administered my punishment. But when the sergeant-major went to untie me, Lord Arbordown barked at him to stop.
“I'm not done with him yet. Turn him around.”
Orders were obeyed, leaving me with my arms tied to the cross behind my back. Hot torture wherever I rubbed against the rough wood. I met Arbordown's gaze for a moment, which was all I could bear. He wore the most sadistic grin I'd ever seen. He was as grey, gaunt, and pale-eyed as Death himself.
He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. In the distance, two shapes emerged from a tent I'd come to know well. First, the sour-faced manservant, pulling a chain. Second, Nerell, at the end of that chain. Her dress was torn and her neck caught in a slave collar. Proud, and terrified.
This man, this 'Lord,' loved to keep and flaunt his slaves. But to do it to his wife, a noble born? To the woman I loved...?
Fury gave me strength, and I hurled myself against the ropes. The rough hemp strained but didn't yield. “Let her go! Let her go, you son of a bitch!”
“You feel something for the whore, eh?” He clucked his tongue as if disappointed. Contempt. Nothing but contempt. “Then it would be a crime to keep you two apart. Brath, help her!”
At a gesture from the mercenary captain beside Arbordown, several of those hired bodyguards dismounted. There was evil in their eyes when they approached Nerell. They dragged her in front of me so I could watch them throw her around like a rag doll, tearing the clothes off her body until she knelt before them, naked, humiliated, frightened beyond words. Still she clenched her trembling jaws together and refused to make a sound. I cried for her, screaming out in impotent rage.
Then they took her by the arms and brought her towards me. Turned her around and bent her over, forced her legs open, to grind against me like a dog while she begged them to stop‒
“NO!”
“NOT AGAIN!”
“NEVER AGAIN!”
It was the sound of my own voice echoing back to me with the force a tidal wave. Pleading, thick with despair. The awful memory faded, but it was still there at the edge of my perception, waiting to draw me back into that parade of horrors.
The Other smiled at me. The gesture might've conveyed sympathy, were it not for those empty eyesockets staring into my soul. “Poor Karl. Wronged so deeply. It must be painful to
see it happen all over again. I can soothe that pain, make it so you never felt it at all.”
For a moment, for one fleeting taste, the memory... went away. Peace and serenity washed over me, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I'd felt so bad just now. It was like being clean again for the first time in a decade.
Then the awful images came crashing back, and I recoiled. In my weakness, I wanted nothing more than for the suffering to go away.
“I want‒” I whispered, barely able to speak.
“Yes? Ask me, Karl, and I'll make it happen.”
“I want to‒”
Oh, that peace. That serenity. That blank happiness. I'd leave everything behind, not a blemish on my soul, and I could sleep forever.
...But I forgot her. In that oh-so-perfect instant, without pain, I didn't even know her name. Nerell, who'd meant so much to me. Nerell, the mother of my child. I couldn't bear to forget her. Not Nerell, not Calum, not Yazizi or Faro or Racha ‒ and, most of all, not Ioanna. Through all the horrific events of my past, I didn't want to lose them.
And my heart howled, Remember them! Remember me!
I saw my companions through the Other's eyes, still bowing to him. But I saw them twitch. Ever so briefly, their eyes were clear.
I did that. I could do that. And... And it wasn't the Other who'd released me from that memory. I'd pulled myself out by will alone.
As long as there was the faintest glimmer of life left in me, I still had a contract.
“What are you doing, Karl?” the Other asked. His tone was sharp as knives. “Why are you trying to reject my boon to you?”
I faced him, and for the first time I wasn't afraid. I no longer saw my own reflection in him. The cruel curve of those lips, the eyebrows set blandly as if beyond caring about human life... None of that would ever show on my face.
“What a boon,” I scoffed. “You were never trying to do me a favour. I was right. You want me gone because I'm not helpless.”
“Don't be ridiculous. What could you possibly hope to do to me?”
Written in Blood Page 51