Chapter Ten #2
I edge towards him, hoping he will take this as an act of peace and not a threat. I have to take advantage of this opportunity, this is my one chance to get out of this wretched place, even just for the day.
‘Perhaps you might do me a favour,’ I ask, giving him my sweetest smile. The man gulps loudly.
‘I suppose I should wait ‘til you tell me the details of such favour before I agree to be of service, miss,’ he stutters.
‘Of course.’ I nod in understanding, fearful that he might be easily deterred should I push too hard.
‘I was hoping you might take me to one of those places, you know, where you tend to the afflicted?’ I wave my hand in the air as though I have the power to make his thoughts run faster.
‘I have a friend I am hoping to find there,’ I lie, stomach churning at the sin of it.
The guard dithers, eyes to the ground. I stare at him the entire age it takes him to decide on an answer, my eyes burning a hole in the top of his head. He shifts his weight on his feet, before giving an unconvincing nod.
‘I will take you.’ The crack in his voice tells me the nod was a poor attempt to trick himself into believing he won’t get in trouble for smuggling a strange girl he just met into a building full of the feverish and vulnerable.
‘It won’t be too much trouble? I do not wish to be a burden on you?’ I say, only not to sound too desperate.
‘Another guard will find the king,’ he says.
‘Better them than me,’ I reply, with a smile that makes it to my eyes this time, as I think of the torture I would inflict on that man, for the violation of my mind once again.
He’s lucky I don’t have access to my fire.
We slip out of the gates of the manor, unnoticed in all the commotion. The orange of dawn edges into the sky as we trudge down the steep road that leads into the city.
Even in the light of daybreak, my surroundings are difficult to determine, blurred, only this time by a sheet of grey morning mist. I shiver, wrapping my arms around my body to trap in some heat, regret tingling on my skin with the cold.
I curse myself for not finding a cloak to protect me from the harsh breath of the Umbrian winter.
Unmistakable in the mist, is the dark, skeletal trees that line the dirt path, bony branched hands outstretched and desperate. I stare up at them, wary, as though taking my eyes off their spindly fingers leaves me vulnerable of being ensnared, a victim of the lifeless wood.
I keep close to the guard, the sword sheathed by his belt a comforting presence rather than a threat to my life. Neither of us say a word. The nameless guard unsure quite why he has agreed to do this act, and me, unsure whether I have put him at risk of reprimand should he get found out.
‘Do you have a family? Mr…’ I trail off, hoping he’d fill in the blank for me.
‘Bem. Bem Twine, miss,’ he offers. His eyes light up at the thought of his family. ‘And I have two daughters. Alarna and Celeste. They are my life source, I truly don’t know how I ever lived without them to drive me.’
My face warms at the love in his words, my heart aches at the fatherly affection in his voice, missing being the subject of such pride.
‘It is nice to meet such a doting father.’ I smile. ‘They are young, your daughters?’
‘Ten and twelve, although they talk as though they are already young women of marrying age. They think themselves much cleverer than their old Papa.’
I laugh at the thought of children acting grown, my smile weakening at the fleeting nature of their human life that they so desperately wish to hasten. How lucky us immortals are in having a beautiful deliberation to our childhoods, having time in abundance to grow at an unhurried pace.
‘It is a shame they do not savour girlhood as they ought to.’
‘I find comfort in knowing they still hold excitement for their future, when the world around them is so bleak and unforgiving.’ He looks out at the sight of the city on the horizon, a sea of dark buildings and smoke billowing from chimneys, like greyed souls swirling in the air on their ascent to the gods.
‘You were so quick to agree to take me where I asked. I would think this puts you at risk of getting in trouble should the king find out.’
His face tightens but his eyes remain light.
‘I was standing guard at the gates of the manor when the king arrived with you and the afflicted girl, and I was struck still with how much you remind me of my darling girls. And I couldn’t stand the thought of either of them arriving in a strange new kingdom, knowing nothing of the world they have entered into in comparison to the one they have left behind. ’
My forehead creases. ‘I have not left my world behind. I fully intend on returning to Reyhen as soon as I have the answers I need.’
His head dips. ‘You may return, but nothing will be as it was. I know the king will forgive my venture in helping you, for he knows too deep down that he cannot do this alone much longer, and he needs your help as reluctant as he is to admit it.’
‘I take it that means you know I’m the princess then.’ I raise a brow.
‘I won’t punish you for it.’
He looks ahead as we approach the borders of the city, thatched-roof cottages now scattered along the road we follow, the mist lifting the closer together the buildings become.
My senses are overcome with an unpleasant aroma, an earthy blend of mud, burning wood and animal manure causing my eyes to water, vomit threatening to rise to meet my gasp.
The land around each house is littered with broken chairs, dirtied rags and the bodies of starved farm creatures, bones poking from lifeless flesh; poverty and desperation materialised. How do the people here avoid starvation if even their source of food cannot eat?
I bring a hand up to cover my nose and mouth, half out of horror, half out of the need to block out the smell I now recognise to be deprivation and struggle.
Bem keeps his head low as children cry out from houses, hunger thinning their voices into hopeless shrieks. No doubt thinking of his own daughters.
As the dirt-track road turns to cobbled streets, the mud and carcasses disappear but the despondency lingers, latching onto the wind and howling garbled pleas into the whirl of my ears.
The city streets are a maze of timber-framed wattle-and-daub houses that lean into the sky, uneven and warped with the passage of time.
I read the signs for the butcher shop, the dressmakers and the green-grocers with a whisper as I traipse behind Bem, each storefront as dilapidated and abandoned than the next.
The streets are empty of bodies, devoid of the business of daily life; no women running about with baskets for their groceries, no children running around engaged in play, no men shouting prices from market stalls. We are walking through a ghost city, haunted by the vibrancy of the kingdom’s past.
‘The streets are empty,’ I say to Bem, whose face tightens at the statement.
‘Our population has greatly depleted in the last century, very little survived the first bought of the affliction.’ He looks to the shattered glass of an apothecary window as we turn a corner, blinking slow.
‘We lost all trade – all our crops and animals died with us.’
I swallow hard, guilty at the thought of Reyhen thriving with our own flourishing crops, cities bursting with vitality and successful businesses.
‘In Reyhen we have managed to keep things running without the trade we once had with Umbra and the mainland, I had no idea that there was so much struggle here.’
Bem gives me a meek smile, coming to a halt before a giant black door, painted with the same crescent moon that’s stitched into his uniform. The clattering of metal and the thumping of heavy boots sounds out from the other side. Thunder begins to rumble on this one.
‘Perhaps you might help us in more ways than one, Princess.’
He knocks four times on the dark wood.
The door opens to what can only be described as chaos.
Utter Mayhem.