Chapter 8
James wasn’t able to get comfortable enough to sleep, and not just because of the agony that was twisting up his insides and making his bones feel like broken glass.
He was deeply humiliated, surrounded by the evidence of his own addiction and what it had driven him to.
The sight of the smashed and shattered furniture was almost surreal to him, as though someone else had wrought such havoc – or as though some otherworldly force had momentarily possessed him, taking control of his limbs and turning them to destruction with the more rational elements his mind trapped and helpless inside.
The rational elements that still remained, at any rate. And those hung limp, torn, and pitifully tattered, like the forlorn sails of a ship that had come through a hellish storm.
Was he going irretrievably mad? He suspected he might be.
Mentally, he desperately grasped for any alternative theory as to what might have caused such terrible changes within him.
He tried to tell himself that he did not have a “laudanum problem” but rather a pain problem, of which the substance was merely an unfortunate byproduct (and, therefore, not to be blamed on its own merits).
He clung to the notion that he would be in this same state—or indeed, perhaps far worse—were it not for the opiate’s ability to soothe his anguish.
It had been far easier to try to convince himself of such things when he’d had a relatively steady supply of the laudanum available to him.
He’d been able to promise himself that he would eventually get a firmer grip on the daily pain in his leg and that once that happened, he would happily wean himself off the stuff.
That was the way of things, wasn’t it? Laudanum was used to treat physical discomfort, and when that discomfort became more manageable, the opiate would no longer be necessary.
Was it his fault that the horrid throbbing simply refused to subside in any sort of reasonable time frame?
Was he to be blamed for taking measures to procure it for himself when the “healers” had informed him they would no longer supply it to him?
No, he’d simply done what he had to in order to get by.
If he could have simply waved a magic wand and gotten rid of the pain in his leg that way, of course he would have.
Did people think he enjoyed taking so much laudanum?
Except that he did, though. Or rather, he had grown to hate it—and, by extension, himself—but he had remained unwilling to consider the possibility that he might stop even though his pain stubbornly continued.
Now he had been left with absolutely no choice but to discontinue it and look what he had done in response. He’d destroyed everything in his chamber, and what purpose had it served? Who had it truly punished?
Only himself.
Now he was left tossing and turning (and clutching his wounded leg) in the remains of a torn-apart bed frame, feeling the hard stone floor against his back and limbs even through the mattress beneath him.
Whenever he opened his eyes, he was assailed by the evidence of what he had done to all of his possessions in a fit of blind and useless rage.
He squeezed his eyes shut again and pressed his palms against them, trying to hold back a scream of useless rage.
His guts churned, his skin was on fire, and he found that he could not stop twitching.
His eyelids in particular seemed to be gripped by irritating spasms that would prevent him from sleeping even without the rest of his woes.
There was a knock at the door, and he sat up, ignoring the pang the sudden motion sent into his leg.
There was a brief but wondrous moment when he managed to convince himself that Alvin had somehow managed to procure a new bottle for him anyway and perhaps had found a way to unlock the door as well.
These were hopeless (and, in fact, rather stupid) fantasies, but he couldn’t help it.
He was at his wit’s end and fervently needed to believe that there may yet be some form of deliverance on hand for him.
Something other than Edwina’s supposed solution of simply cutting him off from the opiate completely and gleefully watching him suffer.
Then came the voice of Darina, his sister-in-law: “May I please come in, James?”
He let out a disappointed groan. “If you feel you must.”
He heard the door unlock, and as he did, he felt a terrible urge rise within him to force his way past Darina (knocking her to the ground, if necessary) and escape this place once and for all.
He didn’t know where he would go or what he would do; he only knew that he would be free of the confines of this abominable chamber of tortures and that from there, he could decide how he might best find more of the laudanum he needed.
But James managed to control himself nonetheless.
The more rational part of his mind insisted that he might harm Darina in doing so (and despite his current foul temper, he had no desire to injure the wife of his brother, or any other woman for that matter).
Not only that, but he was fairly certain he’d only make it a few steps down toward the main floor before Darina raised the alarm and several guards came to drag him back to his room.
There had been a time, not too long ago, when those same guards would have obeyed him. Been loyal to him and heeded his commands, no matter what.
That time was over, and there was every chance that it might never return.
Somehow, the prospect of this seemed more heartbreaking than anything that had come before. He had lost his position of authority. More than that, he had lost the respect of his own people, and he knew it would likely be impossible for him to win it back again.
The door opened, and Darina stepped in. She carried a tray with a steaming bowl of broth on it. “I’ve brought you a bit of supper, James, if you feel you can take it. Edwina said that the best thing for you would be this broth since it will be lighter on your stomach.”
“Please take it away at once,” James growled. “The very smell of it makes me ill.”
Darina nodded evenly. “Yes, she said that might be the case as well. No matter.” She carefully set the tray down on the floor of the corridor outside, then closed the door behind her, surveying the damage. “Good heavens. Did some sort of wild animal manage to find its way into your chamber?”
“The animal that did this is still in the chamber,” he warned, “and his disposition has not improved one bit, so you may want to retreat at once.”
She chuckled mirthlessly. “I believe I shall take my chances. The beast seems wounded and unlikely to give pursuit should I try to flee.”
“Why have you summoned that dreadful harridan here to torment me so?” James knew that his tone was bordering on whining, but he found he could not control it.
“What possible good could it serve for her to keep mocking and abusing me thus? What have I ever done to you, sister-in-law, to earn such treatment?”
“It is precisely because you have always been so kind to me in the past that I do this for you now,” she informed him.
“Look at yourself, James. Look around you. This isn’t the man I knew, not even so very long ago.
This creature that you’ve become is weak and loathsome. Do you not see it? Do you not feel it?”
“All I feel,” he replied coldly, “is an acute lack of my medicine and the horrors that go along with that.”
Darina sighed. “You can rise above this, James. And frankly, you must. Your brother and nephew bitterly miss the man you used to be. They are depending upon that man to return to them, even if it means overcoming tremendous hardship to do so. Because they know that that man would do such a thing out of love for them…if he still exists within you. Only you can decide whether there is any truth in that.”
“The healers of this very keep have abandoned me to my suffering in my hour of greatest need. They washed their hands of me, told me that they could do no more to allay my anguish. What can a sharp-tongued noblewoman with an awful attitude do in their stead?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. We must wait and see and trust in her judgment. She is far more knowledgeable about such things than you might imagine.”
James had no answer for this. The entire thing seemed silly beyond belief, as far as he was concerned.
More than anything, he wished that if he could find no laudanum to quiet his pain, he might at least be mercifully embraced by death.
Anything would be better than living in this halfway place of meager survival and unending misery.
He felt like a corpse that had crawled forth from its own grave, worms wriggling hungrily within its guts and veins.
“I only ask that you give this course of treatment its due consideration rather than dismissing it out of hand, James,” she finished quietly, gesturing around her. “Anything must be better than this.”
She withdrew, and when she closed the door again, he heard it lock once more.
He felt that sound in the pit of his stomach, and suddenly a shriek tore its way out of his throat, loud and long and jagged, the sound of a man’s humanity being savagely ripped away from him.
He did feel like little more than an animal in that moment, and no matter how hard he tried to contain the scream, it simply kept on coming.
Even after all the breath had left his lungs, he continued in a faint, high-pitched, wheezing whine.
Blood filled his eyes, and he suddenly realized that he had been slamming his forehead against the stone floor over and over.
The pain in his skull momentarily eclipsed the agony in the rest of his body, and he clutched his head, sinking facedown into the mattress and sobbing.
These people could say what they would about his body, eventually giving up its need for the laudanum, but he saw through their lies. This pain would only become worse with each passing moment until it consumed him utterly.
They did not understand what he was enduring, what he needed.
No one did.
Eventually, he managed to drift into a troubled sleep.
He had hoped that, at least in his dreams, he would be free of the pain.
But no, the agony followed him there, and if anything, his wound seemed hideously exaggerated in his nightmares.
The maimed flesh dribbled with blood and purulence, and he could see maggots squirming within his own skin, devouring him from the inside out.
Such things only feasted on the dead, and so it seemed to him in his queasy dream-state that dead he must be, yet persisting in this ghastly form due to some insidious evil curse or spell.
When he looked down again, the limb hung disfigured from his body by a single strip of flesh, dragging behind him as he hobbled around.
He knew that if he could only summon the strength to tear it free of himself completely, he would be liberated from his torture…
but he found he simply could not do what needed to be done.
The people around him—including his brother, Darina, and even his evil old monster of a father—all pointed and laughed, jeering at his anguish. Edwina danced before him like a malign imp, dangling a bottle of laudanum just out of his reach.
At last, his hands closed around the bottle, but when he pulled the stopper on it, a nest of hissing serpents slithered forth from it, clear venom dripping from their bared fangs.
He awoke at last, his head aching, his leg throbbing, and tears pouring from his eyes. He passed the rest of the night praying for salvation that refused to arrive.