by G S Santos
Kaunas took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. "Adelphine!" He let out a heart-wrenching cry. "How is Papa? Is he fine? Did they find him?"
"No, they didn’t. But…there’s something I have to tell you, Kaunas..." Adelphine looked at the floor and swallowed hard.
"How is he?"
"Kaunas, I could not stop him..."
"What? You could not stop him from what? What are you talking about?"
"Kaunas, I'm sorry. I don’t know what to do now… I..."
"You’re sorry about what? Did they hurt him?" Kaunas did his best to lift his neck and speak, but his eyes were half closed, and his body was full of bruises.
"Kaunas, he's dead!" Adelphine said, as the tears broke out like a waterfall.
Kaunas lowered his head. He sighed; it seemed like he wanted to cry, but the tears did not come out.
She continued, "He stuck his..."
"Shut up!" Kaunas cried, and it seemed that the scream caused him pain. "You let Papa die! You promised you would take care of him!"
"Kaunas, what was I going to do? He just..."
"Do not talk to me! I don’t want to hear from you. Look at what you did to us! Look at what you did to me!"
"Kaunas, what are you talking about? Do you think I wanted him to die? He was locked up! I was waiting for you! What did you want me to do? Do you think it's my fault? You're hurt, do you want me to leave you here? Do you want me to let you rot here? Outside of the castle. No way!"
Kaunas breathed as if he had been punctured in the lungs and moaned like a puppy. He looked to the side and squeezed his eyes shut.
Adelphine tapped on his shoulders. He grunted. "Kaunas, answer me!"
"Adelphine...I won’t talk…to you..."
Adelphine stood up and sighed. "Can you walk?" she asked.
Kaunas pointed at his right leg. Adelphine blinked and inspected the bone that was popping up. Someone would have to put it back in place, or cut it before it went bad.
"Gods! What did they do to you?"
Adelphine cut off part of her dress and made a compress on Kaunas's leg. He cried out as if his nails were being pulled out.
"Blast, Kaunas. Let's see, get up in your arms, I'll take you inside."
Kaunas obeyed, raised himself with his arms, and Adelphine helped him advance into the castle, where he leaned against the stairs.
"Kaunas," Adelphine's voice trembled as if interrupted by the wind. "I already know what we have to do. Do you want to know?"
Kaunas had his eyes fixed on the horizon and his face in a grimace of despair, as if he wanted his life to end at that very moment.
Adelphine continued, "All we have to do is seek justice, my brother. For all they have done to our family."
***
The next day, Adelphine tried to ignore the pain in her arms and back, thinking that every time she buried the shovel on the ground, she was sticking it on Siwelzac's skull, or that of one of his men; especially that disgusting captain. By midday, the hole was big enough to house their father's body for eternity, or as long as she did not have money for a burial worthy of a nobleman. Kaunas lay next to her, in bloody rags, but bandaged with the remains of Adelphine's cloak. On a velvet carpet and under the banner of the family with a deer crest on a green shield, lay the body of Vytaulas, Duke of Varunas. Adelphine had dressed him in his old armor, now with segments bathed in rust as a testimony of how far away his days of glory were.
Adelphine left the shovel stuck in the ground and stood up, her unruly, reddish hair flowing in the wind. She sighed. That was wrong. It was not a funeral for a man of his bearing. And in spite of the many friends, the comrades and his family, there was nobody else to bid him his last farewell, but his children. There was nothing but the ruins of a once glorious castle and the cries of two estranged children. Now, because of Siwelzac's injustice, there was nothing but loneliness and abandonment.
Adelphine looked at her brother. "Any words, brother? For our father?"
"I always loved you, Papa..." he said in his pitiful, tight voice. “ Because of how brave you were; and I know you're still with us. I hope you guide us forever. Hope you…hope you watch over us from the Land Over All Seas. From the Abode of Heroes, and…that you will rise to fight at the end."
Adelphine carried the body slowly, panting and trying to ignore the pain; then she slid it through a ladder through the slope, then pulled the rope that tied to the side, slowly. Her back hurt, but nothing hurt more than what she had suffered in those days.
Adelphine looked at the horizon, at the plains in the distance, and put her hand close to her heart. She listened to her own heartbeat as if taking an oath in its name. Tears broke through once more, but this time, Adelphine's heart was pounding with fury.
"I swear to you, Papa." She wiped her nose with her sleeve. "That justice will be served."
Chapter II:
City of scorn
Adelphine breathed deeply in the gloom of her bedroom, kneeling and looking under the bed with a half-lit lantern casting lights and shadows on the wall. She stretched her hand under the mattress, in the darkness, until she found what she was looking for. She reached for the leather cover, grabbed the book, and pulled it out. It looked smaller than it did years ago, but it felt heavier than it should for a book its size. A strange aura circled it, like a cloud of darkness poisoning the air. She sat in the lotus position and opened it.
She had left an oak leaf on that yellow page, written in an archaic, almost incomprehensible language. It said spell to reverse the agony to your adversary. In the center, there was an intricate drawing, with a circle in the middle and twelve angles drawn around it, with small octagons surrounding the vertices. There, months ago, she had written the letters S-I-W-E-L-A-C, with all the intention of her heart. In spite of that, she never heard of the count suffering a simple headache, and according to what people said, he had excellent health for his sixty-something years.
On the contrary, things had been fatal to her family.
She sighed. Was it worth it to waste time with that useless book? That was not real magic. Sure, it was a publicity hoax for resentful people like her aunt, Antonie. She slammed it shut and kicked it under the bed. She jumped up and ran into the hall, where she could hear Kaunas's plaintive voice. She sighed again and rolled her eyes.
"What happened?" Adelphine entered her brother's room. He lay on the bed with his torso tied like a mummy, with blood stains adorning the yellow bandages and his face marked with magic circles she had drawn, hoping to heal him. He had red hair, greasy as if someone had washed a hen on top of it, tangled above his head.
"Woman, I'm starving! How much longer will it take?"
Adelphine cleared her throat. "Well, you want to eat? You're going to eat what you want, and then next week when we have nothing, what do you plan to do? You ate once, Kaunas, me too. At this rate, if you eat two servings per day we will be left with nothing for Friday."
"Do you want me to die of hunger?" Kaunas spoke as if someone was strangling him. "Well, find more. If you study magic so much, make them spring from the earth."
"Stop already!" Adelphine jumped up. "If you continue like this, I will consider letting you starve. I hate to tell you this, brother, but it's too much. I take care of you, I clean you, I feed you, and yet you complain."
She stopped and looked at him.
She did not want to say it, she shouldn’t. He was her brother, and she owed him her love and respect, but it was easy to lose her patience. At times, she entertained the thought that if he had died and not Dad, things would be better, but she restrained herself in the act.
He glared at her.
"And how could I help you, smart girl? Do you want the field for you? If you want to learn magic, I will learn to float and I'll throw the gray ray at your poor cow, Karva, so you can milk her for eternity. I do not know if I'm lucky to stay alive or if it would be better if I died. At least that way I would not be in pain."
Adelphine fixed her g
aze on Kaunas as if pointing at him with an arrow. "Enough, Kaunas!" She held up her arm. "Rest a couple of weeks, and I assure you that by then you'll be fine. Have patience."
But Adelphine remembered that in a week from then, there would be no more vegetables left, even if they ate a potato a day. In a second, all the strength of will she had left to hide her emotions abandoned her.
She jumped up and screamed. Adelphine hid her face between her hands and wept.
"Give me wine at least!" Kaunas protested. "That takes away my pain."
"No more wine!" Adelphine shouted. "You drink too much! From now on, light beer is all you’ll get."
"You do not know what it feels like to have your leg cut off! Nor to have three horses stepping over your body!"
"Kaunas, we can still keep the wine that’s left and sell it."
"Don't even think about it, Adelphine. Also, who is going to buy from us now? We deserved it, Adelphine. Everything! We acted like fools since the beginning. And now we cannot do anything about it."
"No, no. It's not Papa’s fault." Adelphine raised her voice. "It's Siwelzac. Any civilized person would have forgiven the debt or at least reached an agreement. That bastard hates us! He wanted to make us suffer, and he is doing it. See, and stop blaming yourself!"
"And well, now we can do nothing."
Adelphine sighed and stared at the floor. "Maybe you are right. But I do not want to die, Kaunas, without seeing him pay."
"Who?"
"Siwelzac."
"Adelphine." Kaunas’s voice was sharp. "If the clan is extinguished, it is our fault for never raising a single child. At least if you had married well, surely we would have increased the patrimony. There would be someone else in the family. There would be more family!"
"Do not mention it, Kaunas. For your own good." Adelphine looked at Kaunas and jumped to her feet. She stepped forward, clenching her fists. "Enough. You stop it!" she shouted, blood and tension invading her face.
Adelphine took a deep breath; the anger flowed like boiling blood, but she concentrated on the fact that he was her brother, and that he was also having a bad day. Finally, she lowered her arms with a long sigh. "Kaunas," Adelphine said. "I'm going to look for Aunt Talia."
Kaunas took a deep breath. "What are you thinking to do? Do you want to work with her? Are you going to leave me here by myself?"
"Kaunas, I'm going to ask for your help. I have already told you."
"Don't leave me alone, Adelphine... No. Do you want them to come back, to look for me, find me here lying down, and tear my other leg?"
"Kaunas, we still have three months."
"And they will come to spy on us, to harass us and worse. No, no, if you have any love for the family, do not even think about leaving me."
"Can Kaunas Rodolphus make sense, for once in a lifetime?" Adelphine raised her voice and reminded herself of her deceased mother. "You want to eat well, but you don’t want your sister to leave the castle to find you food? Do you want to eat the walls?"
"I want to say yes, but do not leave me alone to rot just for a job. They could come and mess me up at any time!"
Adelphine sighed in disgust. "I'm leaving early tomorrow morning. I will not waste any more time." She turned her back and shut the door behind her.
"Do not forget to bring me wine," Kaunas’s voice rang through the walls.
***
The next morning, Adelphine chugged on a jar of milk and set out on her way to the walled city of Vilnas, while the sun peeked over the plains, with a bag tied to her back and aches and callouses in her feet, her stomach roaring and her muscles weakened by hunger. Nonetheless, she was relieved to walk away from the miserable castle and the scorched field. There was an autumn wind that cooled her, and the leaves were already red as flames. After a few kilometers of plains and trees, she spotted the city of Vilnas, with its tall, pointed towers and amber colored walls.
The city gates remained open, and people and carts flowed like a riverbed, coming and going, carrying goats, chickens, and bags full of who knew what. She had not seen human beings other than Kaunas in a while, and she was nervous about the idea.
As soon as she crossed the gates, the smell of feces, urine, and putrefying things invaded her nostrils. The main street extended forward, with balconies and arches on the sides, buildings once beautiful and now eaten away by use and overshadowed by the sales of trinkets on each side.
The path led her to a wide square adorned with the statue of a king of yesteryear, dominating a plan with an octagon shape and from which more diagonal streets emerged. She looked from one side to another. There were stairs that led to increasingly high neighborhoods and villages, the pilgrimage door to one side, place of temples and devotees, and the streets of destruction, gambling and vice to the other.
Now, she had to find Aunt Talia. All she knew was that she brewed beer and lived near a famous sorceress. The latter she found out as a child, listening to the conversations of her aunts. But she did not know if she was still living there. She turned to ask but was distracted by the looks on her from the people passing by, some pointing and whispering things.
She lowered her head and walked into the square, wanting to avoid attention, but the murmurs felt increasingly heavy and inquisitive. Among the crowd, someone said Varunas, and as soon as she heard it, she wished the earth could swallow her. She walked faster, but some seemed to slide through the crowd and waving the footsteps behind them, until she heard a woman's voice, rough like sandpaper.
"Stop right there, you swindler!"
Adelphine turned around and saw a woman with matted, blond hair, a blond baby in one arm, and a finger of scorn extending toward her.
Adelphine blinked and took a step back. "Who? Me?" She swallowed.
"She's the swindler from the old Varunas fold," the woman told the bystanders. "The one the count was talking about, Varunas! Look at her, she has a blue eye and a green one! It's her!"
"Get out of here!" said a butcher, leaning out of the door of his shop, with a knife in his hand and dried blood covering his apron.
"Out! We've heard what you did, and it's not honorable!" yelled a scrawny boy with shoulder-length dark hair and an amulet with the icon of a horse. He took a step forward, almost pushing Adelphine to the floor.
"Me? Why?" Adelphine said, staggered. "I have not done anything wrong!"
A dozen eyes were fixed upon her, and she felt trapped like a rat in the kitchen corner.
"People like you should be hung," said a voice.
The crowd gathered closer around her, like crows surrounding a corpse. She stepped back and felt her back hit the stone wall.
"Let’s kick her out! Let’s teach her a lesson." The unfriendly mother scowled.
"You scum! We don’t want people like you around," shouted an obese man with no visible neck.
"What do they say I've done?" Adelphine asked, her voice haughty and defiant.
"You know what you did! Doing dirty business with the good Count Siwelzac, and you wanted to get away with your scams. You caused the last recession of the kingdom. You disgusting scum of the earth!"
"Don’t you see?" The butcher pointed to a crooked carving in the middle of the wall. It read Varunais ar treitors in abysmal grammar, accompanied by the drawing of a boot kicking a deer. Adelphine blinked in surprise.
"Yes," shouted a man with a hat. "We saw it at the theater! We saw how your father cheated on the good count and stole all his money, and the banker’s money, then bought a farm and spent it all on blackjack and hookers!"
"At the theater?" Adelphine raised an eyebrow, outraged by the bizarre things she was hearing.
"Yes, in the last play of the Siwelzac Theater Company!"
"Theater? It's all a lie! The count is the swindler! He plunged our family into rui...!"
Adelphine felt something wet stick in her face and instinctively touched it. When she realized she had been spat on, she felt her stomach twitch. She grimaced and wiped herself with her
sleeves.
The mother took a step forward and slapped her in the head.
"The count is a hero!" she cried, revealing rotten teeth. "He has given us everything we have! And your family took our things! Varunas built his castle with our sweat!"
Adelphine looked around as if seeking someone's mercy and understanding.
"He is the liar!" Adelphine cried, but her pleas were drowned out by the murmurs. Suddenly, a rock brushed her cheek and fell to the ground, heavy and stinging. Was it the scrawny boy or the woman? Another rock followed, while she covered her face with her forearms. She took a step and stumbled backward, falling on her back.
"You’ve got to teach her a lesson!" the scrawny guy shouted, and Adelphine crawled backward against the wall. Another rock fell on her head, and she tangled her hands between her hair, around the blow, gnashing her teeth and groaning. Her blood boiled. She grabbed the rock and pointed it at the scrawny boy. She threw it with all her strength, but hit a long-necked woman dressed in fine clothes who was passing by.
"Who do you think you are?" the woman grunted with a horrified look; beside her stood a gentleman, surely her husband, clad in silk, with a gold-laden sword hanging from his belt. His facial expression was the same.
"I'm sorry," Adelphine muttered. She dodged another rock and jumped to her feet, running through the crowd and pushing people to let her through.
"Hey you!" the voice of the scrawny boy followed her. "How dare you do that to her? She did not do anything to you!"
"You cannot hide!" Adelphine heard behind her back, as her heartbeat matched the speed of her steps.
She had to leave the city. Or not... She could not leave with empty hands, she had to find her aunt, and above all, get out of there in one piece. Suddenly, she spotted a white robe and a golden cloak moving through the crowd. It was a monk. She rushed through the crowd and pushed a couple of people until she ran into him and grabbed his arm. The man looked at her with wide eyes; he was so thin that it seemed that the wind could pull him off the ground. He had a pale beard and eyes green as jade.