by C. M. Lind
“Dotard will fetch you when he’s finished.” Saemund looked briefly at the map in his hands. “I see you found some latrines.”
Worm nodded and tapped the empty bag on his back with his free hand. “Yes, Master. We’ll dump what’s left there.”
“Good boy.” Saemund turned and walked away.
* * *
The room was plain. Saemund took his time touching everything in it—feeling it through Ulrich’s own skin. The walls were rough against his hands, the floor radiated cold onto the soles of his feet, and the pillows were lumpy under his face. Stripped bare, he laid on the bed, stretching out his legs and arms.
The first hours were the best with new flesh. The first decade of his life, he never reveled in the sensations. He simply did as he was told for his master and nothing further. He thought of himself then as an unthinking, unfeeling, uninterested tool.
Unlike Dotard and Worm who came decades after Saemund, his master had always called him a true success, and Saemund feared disappointing him—so he played the part of the consummate slave.
The second decade, Saemund began to feel comfortable in his station. He was hailed as capable, smart, and strong. Subtly, he began to enjoy the sensations that called out to him. The world begged to be touched with the sensitive skin of humans. A small shift of his shirt here and the caress of a lace sleeve there was enough to make him truly feel—awakening something in him that he never thought of about himself: being alive.
In the third decade of his existence (where he found himself now), his master began to give him some autonomy. He would send him on missions unsupervised. This gave Saemund the courage to experiment. In new skins he would touch everything he could: cloth, stone, plants, water, snow, animals, and even humans. Everything was heightened in other’s flesh. His own was thick and hard—more of a carapace than skin. A man could strike him with a club and he would barely feel it.
But with a human husk he could feel all the things that humans could.
He pressed his palms in to the bed, enjoying its give underneath him. He would let go and the bed would slowly rise back—only to be pressed down again.
Soon, he knew, he would have to work. He would have to stalk his prey. He would have to learn of her intention. Then he would have to execute her if she was an assassin, or he would simply disappear and return to his master if she wasn’t.
His master, he thought. Master Netos. How he loathed the pathetic, weak man. A man too thin and sickly to do anything on his own accord.
He pressed the bed again.
It was the sole reason for his existence after all: to serve his master, Netos. To serve was in Saemund’s blood and bones—his inescapable fate.
His master sold Saemund’s skills as he saw fit, and he was very wealthy. Saemund pressed into the bed again, and it slowly rose.
But, Saemund thought, his master could wait for a little while longer. His hand pressed one more time. There was a loud clunk underneath of him and the bed didn’t rise back up. His hand froze as he stared at the indent—but no matter how long he stared it didn’t come back.
He pulled his hands away—he had let himself become lost in thought, and when that happened he made mistakes. A warble in the voice was the most common slip, or, like with the bed, him forgetting his own strength—which was far greater than a human.
He looked at his hands. How beautifully the priest’s skin fit his own fingers, he thought, as if the lad was meant for him. He gingerly touched the tip of the fingers to his lips, enjoying the slight tickle, before touching his cheeks, his ears, and hair—fluttering at the sensations. As he ran his fingers through his hair, the band that kept it tied back caught, and he accidentally pulled it loose. He sat up, the leather thong in hand. The hair spilled out onto his bare shoulders.
That scent, he thought. He was struck by serene stillness. With the leather band in hand, his lips parted. It was the scent that he first got a faint taste of as he followed her from Iron’s Rest. The scent he tried to smell through the closed window that for days he waited at—watching her. It was that scent that he was finally able to enjoy when the priest had opened the window, and he had slipped in. She was asleep and unaware of his presence as he stood over her—enjoying her sweaty, sharp odor.
That scent that too quickly faded from his fingertips after he visited her while she slept.
He pushed his new hair into his nose with both hands, breathing deeply. The priest must have been close to her, he surmised. He must have spent time beside her that night he visited. He must have lied to Saemund about their relationship because the hair smelled so strongly of her. It was as if they had shared a pillow.
Saemund breathed deep again, recalling her lying underneath him when he crept into her room. That murderess was so helpless then, he recalled as he fingered the strands of hair.
There was a sudden, gentle knock at the door.
The hair dropped from Saemund’s fingers as if it was contraband. “Yes?”
“Ool-wreckt?” a heavily accented voice inquired timidly.
“What?” Saemund was off the bed in an instant.
“Oul-rick?” the voice strained to be clearer. “It’s me!”
Saemund kicked the robe up with his left foot, and caught it in his right. “You mean Ulrich?”
“That’s what I said!” The voice defensively retorted.
“One moment,” replied Saemund. He pulled the robe over him as fast as he could (ignoring the sensations of the cloth brushing against his skin) before he opened the door. In front of him was a young man dressed in the robes of an initiate—the very same initiate that he had seen the priest talking with earlier that day.
Saemund smiled. “Hello, Nico.”
The lad smiled. “I couldn’t find you earlier!” The lad entered the room without being invited. “I was worried that smell had made you fled!”
Saemund chuckled. “No, just a little ill. Nothing I cannot stomach.”
“You’re much braver than me! I would never go into a room with someone like that!” Nico laughed.
Nico’s accent was so heavy that Saemund found himself pausing to understand the lad before replying. “It’s over now. What do you need?”
“I wanted to make sure you saw the letter.” Nico pointed at the bed stand. A manila envelope rested on top of it—and not much else.
“I was just about to open it,” said Saemund.
“Oh, I was wondering,” Nico scratched his head. “What it says?”
“Well,” Saemund said with a simper. “I haven’t opened it yet, so I don’t know myself.”
Nico laughed again. “You make Justicars wait on you? Once again, you are much braver than me!”
Saemund kept up the smile. “Well, Nico, I’m not feeling all that well. I was taking a nap when you knocked.”
Nico put up his hands. “Say no more! I apologize. You can tell me later, yes?”
“Of course,” reassured Saemund.
“I’m so sorry, Ulrich. Rest well. You look flush.” Nico grabbed the handle of the door as he stepped back into the hall. “I’ll tell the others so no one else bothers you.”
Saemund was flushed. He hadn’t noticed until Nico’s observation. “That would be wonderful. Thank you, Nico.”
“No problem. Feel better.” Nico pulled the door closed behind him.
Saemund grinned. His first test was flawless. He turned to the room and walked to the bed stand. Even though he had touched so much in the room, he hadn’t bothered with the rough wooden table. Once he had experienced a horrid splinter in human flesh for the first time, he lost the desire to feel it again.
Gently, he took the envelope. It was smooth in his fingers—a finer paper than most men would ever know could even be made.
He pulled it open and drew forth a single sheet of paper. The handwriting was impeccable. Justicar Balfour, whom Saemund only know of second hand, had formally invited Ulrich Myrdal to his office—in the Justicar’s Keep.
Saemund chu
ckled. Perhaps the man had pieced together the recent escape of Vitoria and Ulrich’s involvement with her, or, perhaps, the Justicar was seeking the priest’s services for a lover? He shrugged, placing the letter back into the envelope.
He wasn’t sure yet what to do about such an invitation.
He folded the letter back, exactly how it was, and slid it into the envelope. He was about to place it back where it was before, but he paused. A letter from a Justicar would be tantalizing gossip—and he couldn’t be sure that Nico wouldn’t want to read it for himself if left so easily accessible. The nightstand had one drawer. He grabbed the wooden handle and pulled. Inside was a variety of rubbish, including a small metal box on top of a leather-bound book.
The envelope lingered above the night stand in his right hand, before he set it down. With his left, he slid the tome out of the drawer. The box fell to the side with a clink, among the other junk that surrounded it.
He dropped to the edge of the bed with a smile. The tome was worn, as if it had been handled daily for a long while—perhaps years, he thought. The soft leather was as pliable as cloth, and a few loose pages attempted to escape as his earnest fingers opened to the first page. It was a journal entry, dated over a year ago. The print was tiny, but legible—a practiced and learned hand made the most out of the expensive pages.
Saemund couldn’t believe his luck. The priest had handed him everything he needed to know about his new identity. Saemund laid back on the bed, holding the journal above him with one hand. The other was on his hair, nestling a long lock under his nose. With a deep breath, he began to read all the secrets and thoughts that Ulrich had written over the last year.
Chapter 25
“Are you ready?” asked Aimee. Her hands held a bloody rag that Vitoria had just expelled the contents of her nose in. She dropped it into a wooden bowl on top of the table to her side.
“Just finish it,” said Vitoria through a clean rag clenched between her teeth. Her hands were clamped at the edge of the wooden table she sat on while blood streamed from her nose.
“Take a breath,” muttered Aimee.
Vitoria rolled her eyes.
“I mean, take a breath the best you can with that in your mouth, darling.”
Vitoria inhaled a loud, exaggerated breath, pulling air through the left side of her mouth around the rag.
Aimee nodded. “Stay still.” Without hesitation, Aimee pressed her thumb on the bridge of Vitoria’s broken nose. She pushed, moving the leftward curve of the bridge straight.
Vitoria’s nails would have dug into the wood if she was not one to have kept them short. Her eyes watered, and there was only the hint of a tremble to her hands.
Aimee released the nose. “Better, but not perfect.”
Vitoria took another breath, that time without the sarcastic air of before.
Aimee waited, her thumbs inches away from Vitoria’s face.
Vitoria nodded after her breath. “Go,” she distortedly muttered.
Aimee pushed again. Vitoria’s face contorted, but she made no cries. The tears streamed again as she bit deeper into the rag.
Aimee’s fingers released. “I think that is as straight as we’re going to get, darling.” She turned to the right and grabbed the two oblong sachets, which were about as long as a pinky finger, that sat on the nearby table. She turned back to Vitoria. “Head back.”
Vitoria complied, tilting her head back so Aimee could see into her bloody nostrils. Her hands still clenched at the table’s edge.
With as much care as she could, Aimee inserted the sachet into Vitoria’s nostrils.
Vitoria’s face crinkled as if she was about to sneeze.
“I know, darling. Just one more.” She slid the other sachet into the other nostril. “Done!”
Vitoria tilted her down. There was a tickle inside her as if her brain was being teased by the small, scented, stiff bags, and she fought the urge to rip the bags out. She spit the rag out of her mouth onto the floor.
“Leave those in now.” Aimee gestured to Vitoria’s nose. “Don’t touch them. It’ll help with the swelling, and they should keep your nose straight.” Aimee wiped her hands on her apron. “I don’t want to have to set that again.”
“Me either,” agreed Vitoria. Her voice was stunted from her nose being thoroughly plugged. She hawked. Blood that had spilled down the back of her throat made a perfect sticky glob onto the floor by the rag—she had missed.
“Here,” said Aimee.
Vitoria looked up.
Aimee held out a small cup. “Drink.”
Vitoria took it without hesitation.
“It’ll help.”
The cup hesitated in Vitoria’s hands. “Is it…?”
“Poppy?” Aimee chuckled. “Gods, no. It’s Devils Haw and ginger mostly. It’ll help with your stiffness,” Aimee pointed to Vitoria’s hands, “and the nose.”
Vitoria brought it to her lips and took a small sip. It tasted like bark and dirt. Vitoria grimaced, but she forced herself to drink it down in one long gulp, fighting her urge to gag the entire time.
“Just want to get it over with, huh, darling? Don’t rush. You’ll be drinking that a few times a day from now on.”
“Wonderful.” Vitoria sneered at the cup in her hand.
Aimee chuckled. “It’s medicine, darling, not candy. We do what we must because we must. I put some in the kitchen. Make sure to have another cup before bed.”
Vitoria raised her eyebrow. “I don’t think I’ll be able to forget about it.”
Aimee turned to her, smiling.
“What?” For a second, Vitoria brought her hand up to her face, wondering if there was dried blood.
“It’s nice.”
“What?”
Aimee curtly laughed. “It’s nice seeing you here being the smartass you used to be, darling.” She brought the corner of her apron up to wipe the blood from Vitoria’s chin.
Vitoria’s hand went to do it herself, but Aimee took her by the chin with her other hand, and Vitoria knew it would be pointless to object. She sat there until Aimee was satisfied. “There,” said Aimee. “In no time at all you’ll look the part.”
“Fantastic,” said Vitoria, her eyebrow still raised.
Aimee laughed again, that dry, wry laugh that somehow had heart behind it.
“You sure it will heal in time?” Vitoria felt like her nose must have swelled to double its size, and she suddenly became aware of how stuffy her voice sounded.
“No doubt in my mind as long as we change the sachets every day, you drink your tea, sleep on your back, and you stay out of fist fights.” Aimee laughed during the last part of her list. “Do you think you can manage?”
Vitoria nodded. “Yeah.” There was sadness in her voice that Vitoria hadn’t realized had slipped through.
Aimee took the empty cup from Vitoria’s hand. “Vitoria, darling, I wanted to ask you something.” She placed the cup on the nearby table, next to the wooden bowl bearing the bloody rag Aimee had used on Vitoria before, turning her own eyes away from Vitoria. “I don’t want you to think about this whole affair as something for Conyers. No, it’s most surely not for him. I want you to think of it as something you’re doing for yourself.” She busied herself cleaning up the supplies she had used to break and set Vitoria’s nose. “He lied to you. We know that. But you made a deal with him, and you got what you asked for in exchange for this job.”
Vitoria listened, but she kept her eyes at her feet. Aimee had always spoken the world about Conyers, as if the man was her own son, before that moment.
“After this is over, you can do whatever you want, my dear girl. You can be free of the Westergaard brothers once and for all if that is what you want.”
Vitoria couldn’t think about James. When she did, she lost control—so she only thought of the eldest of the Westergaard brothers. “I thought you loved Conyers.”
“Darling,” Aimee gave a nervous chuckle and glanced at Vitoria. “You can love someone
but not trust them.” She turned back to the table. “Especially men. We cannot ever truly trust men. We can love them, bed them, marry them, even have children with them.” She flinched, and her hands froze for a moment before returning to their busied state. “But we must never fully trust them.” She took a clean rag from the table and turned her head to Vitoria. “We must trust in ourselves.” She forced a smile.
Vitoria slowly nodded.
Aimee turned back to the table, the rag in her hand. “Once you’re free of Conyers, do whatever makes you happy, my dear. But know that you are not beholden to him.” She dropped the rag into a small tin cup. “Don’t let him sink his claws into you now that you’re free of him.” She let the rag sit for a few minutes, completely submerged into the liquid in the cup, and silence sat between the two women. “Do not trade a warden and a cell for a new master with an emotional leash.”
Vitoria nodded a little less slowly.
Aimee pulled the rag free, splashing water onto the table. “You’re too smart, and you have given too much, to be consumed by that cult—by Conyers and his secrets.” She turned to Vitoria, and the rag dripped onto the floor. “First it was James who controlled you—“
Vitoria’s mouth opened, but Aimee’s insistent words and resolute presence silenced her own voice—but not the one in her mind. It began to stir at the man’s name.
“It’s the truth, my dear. It is the truth. I saw it, after all. Too many women view blind adoration and unflinching servitude as love. That is not love. So don’t let his brother become your new master—or for that matter, any man.” She brought the wet rag to Vitoria’s nose, cleaning up the last bits of dried blood around her nostrils.
The cool rag felt heavenly on Vitoria’s hot, bulbous, injured nose. She pushed thoughts of James from her mind, instead focusing on the pain—it was so much easier for her to silence the voice when she had something visceral to focus on. “You say don’t trust anyone, but you’re always telling me to be kinder to Ulrich, to value him, to be thankful—”