Chapter Two #4
Casting one last glance at her husband, she stood up and made her away to the floor above.
The knife burned against her skin, her fingernails dug into the soft flesh of her palm.
If she failed—if the daemon punished her for the disobedience—it would be the first time she left a husband a widower. The thought amused her.
As if a mortal would ever mourn my passing…
With her mind she unlocked the chamber door and waited, just a beat, before stepping inside.
She had been in this room before—first to have it furnished to her master’s comfort and then a number of times to report the Count’s activities to Rorgon: where he stored his riches, had he any living family, the usual matters they used to discuss and dissected when it came to her husbands.
The clothes which Rorgon had worn were thrown on the ground, scattered near the bed. She saw splashes of blood around the tunic’s collar and sleeves.
So perhaps you fed, she mused, praying that the human blood within him was weak.
The room reeked of him; the contents of a trunk were spilled across the floor, coins and pieces of cloth thrown on a table.
There was the seal he had searched for among her husband’s belongings.
A ring. A scarf Dulior recognized as one of her own.
It disgusted her to know a part of her was kept in this room.
A piece of silk she had wound around her hair and neck, now sat among the other filthy little things, Rorgon’s fingers running over it whenever he pleased.
And there he was—her beast of a father, her everlasting groom—his body prostrated on the bed, like a puppet made of straw.
No white sheet or warm blanket to cover him, he had kicked them all to the side, spilling off the bed.
He wore a kind of simple tunic, the laces undone to reveal his throat and chest, his legs uncovered and ghostly pale.
Like Christ, laid down dead and bare in His tomb, in the early stages of putrefaction.
Gently, she sat on the edge of the bed, and reached out to caress his hair.
The silver glistened beautifully against the rich brown of her skin.
It reminded her of the first time she saw snow, how it had melted through her fingers.
How good it felt to reach down and grab more, form it into a ball, the cold running up her arm.
Her fingers tightened in Rorgon’s hair and she jerked his head back, baring his neck. With her other hand she brought down the knife, down into the undying soft flesh, and stabbed. Then tore.
Rorgon’s eyes opened and fixed on her instantly.
His hands shot out to grab her and he struggled like a crab to reach her, his fingers scratched at her arms and face.
His fanged mouth opened to scream, the blood gushing out of it in a fountain, drowning the sound of his voice.
How sweetly he gurgled and trashed under her.
“Ssshh, husband,” Dulior cooed, the knife cutting through flesh and larynx.
I will lay fresh flowers on your grave. Red as the blood you have given me.
She pulled his head by the hair, forcing the wound on his neck to widen, and continued to try and break the spine with the blade. She wanted to split him open from ear to ear.
Black as the blood that unmade me.
She pulled and pulled, her breath ragged, her vision blurred as the blood pooled around her.
It ran down her legs like birthing waters.
She wanted to scream and curse him, have her shrieks follow him into the underworld.
But she could not. If she let out a sound now, she would never stop.
Like a mourner, she would spend her days wailing and tearing at her hair, unable to undo what was done to her.
She blindly slammed the knife into his arm, forcing it to still.
With both hands Dulior grabbed at the little that was holding his head and body together, and began clawing.
Her fingers closed around bone. She pressed.
She twisted at the mess under her and gave one final tug, falling back against the bedpost. The head cradled to her breast, moist and warm like a newborn baby.
The mouth opened and closed, the eyes looked up at her, bloodshot and blind.
She did not have a maid to help and carry the head on a platter, so she stood alone in the room, the smell of blood making her gag.
The sheets were drenched in it, it dripped on the floor and dampened her skirts.
The whole of her face and gown were covered with the stuff.
Quickly, under the frantic gaze of the severed head, she stumbled to the fireplace and tried to start a flame.
All the while the decapitated body continued to trash against the bed, one of its hands still pinned to the mattress by the knife.
After what felt like an eternity, Dulior watched the flames dance. She flung the head in the fireplace, and braced herself to hear it scream again. The daemonic mouth opened, the fangs snapped at her but no regurgitating shrieks came from her maker’s head.
Behind her, the body was still twitching and twisting.
Light— Daemons cannot live in the light, she thought, recalling how the light of the sun had scorched and blinded her each time she had tried to escape her maker. It is not enough, the whole of him must burn.
In one final, desperate bid to end this horror, Dulior reached for the curtains and tore them loose.
The bright sunlight flooded the room, spilling over the gore on the bed, instantly causing the thing upon it to erupt into flames.
The skin on Dulior’s arms began to bubble and peel where the rays caressed her.
She barely stumbled out of the room, suffocating from the stench of burning flesh, singed hair, and searing sunlight.
She slammed the door shut behind her, locked it, and forced one foot to move in front of the other. Her soles were slick with blood, but she kept dragging her feet, bracing the nearby wall for support. She hated being awake during the day, it drained her, made her feel itchy and smothered.
By the time she reached the stairs, the smoke had started to spill through. She expected to come upon a servant—the whole house was becoming alive from all the noise and the fire—but instead, it was her husband who waited at the bottom of the stairs.
“Madame!” Gustave’s eyes examined her, searching for the source of the blood.
There were strands of white hair sticking to her fingers.
The scratches her maker left on her face and arms had healed long ago, and her once white gown was now crimson, a trail of slaughter, following her like a bridal veil.
Dulior opened her mouth to speak, thankful that, from the gore, he could not tell that her tears were blood as well. Men and women began rushing up the stairs, someone was yelling over the sound of glass shattering.
“Fire…” she rasped, determined not to cloud his mind—not yet! Let him first see me for who I am. Not as the woman Rorgon fashioned for others but as herself. “My master’s room… there has been a fire.”
“Good,” he said.
DULIOR, 1096
The damage from the fire was repairable, the flames had taken Rorgon’s room and the one next to it but they had not spread to the roof and lower floors.
Gustave dismissed the servants, paid them handsomely, nodding gravely as they confirmed the details he already knew: yes, Rorgon had gone to bed drunk that night; yes, he was known to examine trinkets and tapestries by candlelight—a candle had fallen and ignited some letters; he had suffocated from the smoke in his sleep.
What a silly avoidable death for someone so young and experienced as the Countess’ guardian.
The house was to be rebuilt, of course, but they could not remain there a day longer, the loss was too devastating for the Countess.
The Count found a new house for her, a bigger one, with a garden that she could tend to, hidden from prying eyes, one as far away from the pyre of their past, and with a household staff that knew little of them beyond their need for privacy at odd hours.
In the months that followed, Dulior struggled to find her ground, to understand who Dulior di Flaviari was without the ever-present shadow of her master.
A widow no more but an orphan—a role she was painfully aware of under the watchful eyes of Gustave.
He never questioned her about that night, and Dulior never dared to trespass into his thoughts.
She did not want to see herself through his eyes—as he must have seen her—standing splattered with blood and soot, the smoke building behind her like the gates of Hell.
She locked her mind for all his thoughts, and their days were spent in blissful silence.
One early autumn evening, Dulior made her way along the south bank of the Seine.
Walking close to the shadows of buildings, she observed strangers pass by, talking quietly to each other.
Her light eyes drifted through the trees and bushes, marvelling at the colourful dance of green melting into red, turning slowly to gold until the branch withered and the leaves fell, raining down the cobblestones.
They crunched loudly under her feet, accompanying her late walk.
Oh, how she longed to see the park in the light of day.
She could not appreciate the garden that the gardener maintained for her at home.
Each sunset she would pull the curtains aside and scrutinize the bushes he had trimmed in ridiculous oval shapes.
Fresh bouquets of roses, irises, and carnations filled vases around the house.
Their aroma clung to her clothes and hair, masking any stench that would linger after her hunt.
Sated and weary, Dulior decided to make a wide berth around Saint-Germain-des-Prés before returning home. It had been decades since she last saw the abbey and was curious to see if its former glory had withstood the passage of time and plundering.