Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Demetri
The Apple
I don’t know why I was surprised, after all the shit that I’d seen, why the Dendralis would be anything other than complete and utter cunts.
Ashara had disappeared after the baths. I hoped she was somewhere safe. Somewhere merciful. Pits, even somewhere just warm and dry with a proper latrine.
Us other laurels were afforded no such luxury.
After the indulgence of one proper bath, Falstaff had made it clear there would be no others—thou art under inquisition, not a guest of the templum. It’s my fault, really, for assuming mercy. I should have known better.
I did know better.
Eyeing the keyhole for what must have been the hundredth time, I fiddled with a blunt iron nail between my thumb and forefinger, as if I could roll it like dough into something longer and finer…something distinctly more key-like.
“If my soul is ever dragged from the pits to endure this earthly plain once more, Blood God make me a locksmith, nay a crusiax,” I implored to the vaulted stone above.
“Or a flea,” Maxius grunted from his perch with Roderiq in the corner—the one we didn’t use to piss in. “Locked doors would be easy work then, brother. Though perchance you’d bite Falstaff’s bony arse on your way to merry freedom?”
I gnashed my teeth at him, earning a laugh.
“Hush,” Roderiq whispered, blue eyes sweeping the cell as though an acolyte might crawl from some crack in the mortar.
Maxius’ face split into another grin, white teeth stark against the deep brown of his lips. “Let them hear, Rod,” he said. “Let them hear how Falstaff’s arse deserves a good biting and smite me for it. Blood God knows I can’t take another breath in this stinking hovel, we’ve been in here for days—”
Roderiq pressed a hand to Maxius’ mouth, then yelped when he pulled it away not a second later.
“We may be hungry, but I wouldn’t put Rod’s hand in your mouth. You have no idea where it’s been,” I warned, staring pointedly at his breeches.
“I have every idea.” Maxius chuckled, hooking his elbow around Rod’s slender neck to peck at his head, his once-golden hair now dulled to a grease-slicken beige.
I smiled and rose to my feet, swallowing the seed of jealousy taking root on my tongue until I nigh-on choked on it. It was better she wasn’t here. Better.
“Ye sinners are—”
“Iagor, fuck off,” I interjected, fingers skimming the iron banding of the door, checking for any loose bar. He quietened, his insult dissolving to nothing but an indecipherable mutter.
“It’s nay use, Demetri,” Roderiq said, his tone soft enough to incense.
I drew a deep breath, inwardly listing the reasons why it would be a doltish idea to try to punch through the door.
“You know the iron is taut,” he continued, unaware of my struggle.
“And what of it, anyhow? If you did wrench one loose, beyond lies paxiams, acolytes, the druids of metal. You think yourself a chance armed with naught but a blunted nail and a dimple or two?”
I tossed the small bolt to the floor, its uselessness as offensive as Iagor’s reek from the corner we did use to piss in.
“I don’t plan to fight, brother. It’ll be enough to stumble into one of their secret burrows until I can dig myself out.
The whole templum’s riddled like cheese.
Ah-ha!” A splinter of wood peeled from a corner, its end jagged and sharp.
I pocketed it, the angle of its point a little too similar to the knives adorning the helm of the Butcher.
My stomach churned; its emptiness only half the reason I wanted to vomit.
“We’ll never leave here,” Iagor piped, licking cracked lips. “We’ll die in shame, all of us. Ye’ve tainted me with your impieties, and now I’ll ne’er know the bliss of the beyond—only the fire of the pits.”
“Iagor, for the love of your mother’s left tit, spare us and shut the fuck up,” I groaned, sinking to the floor. “Every time you open your mouth, your stench worsens somehow.”
“It does!” Maxius agreed, clapping his hands. “A marvel—why is that?”
“Why the left?”
Ignoring Iagor entirely, I hugged my knees, the stench rising from me only a little better than his.
It had been days since our “bath”. They’d made us stand, naked and shivering, against walls green with mould, upon a floor slick with damp.
A crusiax trick, to imagine the water hot, to try to will it so.
It had worked sometimes, but even I hadn’t been able to convince myself that the bucket of frigid, stagnant water they’d thrown over our heads was anything other than freezing.
Some lowly monks had scrubbed us raw with bundles of hemp, leaving our skin burning pink.
Though free of ash, we were no cleaner for it.
It was for nought, anyhow. I knew it. They knew it. Even Iagor knew it: we were due a penance, which would come sooner or later. A penance for the no small sin of surviving.
I could almost hear the druids’ sermons, like gall in my ear, echoing through the templum walls from every pulpit in Dendra: An act of bountiful mercy! The Blood God has chosen to halt the offerings! He is pleased with our devotion! It is an act of His infinite love.
I fiddled with the splinter, testing its point against the pad of my finger.
His love was a rough sort.
With a clink, the cell door shuddered, swinging inward as its hinges groaned. Esioul, face perched on her knees, jerked upright, her wide, dark eyes fixed on the threshold.
A sister.
She edged in, face downcast and shoulders hunched, bearing a tray of spoiled food.
It could have been a dead rat, half-rotten and gutted by the templum cat, and still, my mouth would’ve watered.
Four clay bowls sloshed with sour milk and cubes of stale bread, each crowned with a scattering of fruit: bruised apples, under-ripe figs, grapes gone soft and splitting.
Esioul lunged before the sister could set the tray down, snatching a bowl and hobbling towards the lone, sagging mattress at the far side of the cell.
I waited, letting the others claim theirs, though some feral part of me longed to hiss and claw, to seize the lot and crouch over it as she did now, slurping the sludge like it might sprout legs and flee.
She kept her back to us, her one good eye flicking towards Iagor, as if wary he might steal it.
The way his watery eyes tracked her bowl, perhaps her instincts were right.
Bowl secured, I leaned back against the wall and observed the spectacle. Crusiax diets were little more than liver, barley, and whey; sour milk and stale bread would at least keep some flesh on my bones. I had to stay strong. For her. For them.
At last, the sister backed away, her small, chubby hands twisting together, her steps dragging as though reluctant to leave.
The door clicked shut, and I nibbled away at a remnant of rye, when a body plonked itself down next to mine, its owner grunting from the impact.
“We make trade?” Esioul breathed into my ear, her long dark hair brushing my arm.
I lowered the wooden spoon, piled high with a slodge of soaked bread, and turned to her. Dark eyes, one still swollen, crinkled in a smile; she clasped an apple in her hands, one side of it decimated by the grate of her teeth. She presented it to me, cupped in the way of the Blood God.
“Quite the offering,” I smiled. “Though bread for fruit is no trade, but a robbery. You’ve filled your belly; allow me to fill mine.”
Slender fingers curled around my bicep, their pads digging into the muscle. She inched closer.
“I’m flattered, darling,” I reassured, abandoning the spoon to peel her off. “But I’m afraid I’ve vowed to die a cockless eunuch, thus your wiles are wasted.”
She shrieked a laugh, the others too busy inhaling their meals to give her much notice. She pinched my cheek, no malice in the act.
“Too pretty,” she tutted. “I like man like…” Her eyes lifted towards the vaults, brow furrowed in thought.
“Big. Green.” Setting the apple in her lap, she shaped her hands into a ball. “Boil it and smells like death.”
“A… a cabbage?”
“Yes! Cabbage!” she confirmed, slapping my knee. My eyes found Maxius, who grinned into his milk.
“Men like cabbage,” she said, her glance pitying. “Not flower.”
Blood God damn me, I flexed. Flower.
“Big flower,” she reassured, deepening her cadence and tapping my arm. “Big, big flower. But still flower. I need hard and rough, to survive wind and snow.”
“Now, now, Esioul. I think you’ll find I can weather much more than a frost,” I protested.
She retracted, resting her head against the stone beside my shoulder.
“Grey laurel can have you.”
My entire body went taut.
“Trade.” She leaned in closer, her tone conspiratorial, too low for the others. “This apple, for milk. It meant for you.”
I glanced down at the half-eaten, bruised apple, its once-green skin mottled with purple, much like the fading marks upon her skin. She winked.
“For me?”
“Yes.” She grinned, the smile all teeth. She mimed nibbling something, pinching her fingers to her mouth. “Has lots of juicy maggots. Make you strong like cabbage.”
I was more than cabbage enough, though not for long if I surrendered the bowl. I studied her arms, the thin length of them…the prominence of her collarbone protruding from her chest.
“Just this once.”
She nodded, eyes wide.
With a huff, I relinquished my meal, trading it for the fucking apple.
“Half-wit,” someone, probably Iagor, muttered from the corner.
She hauled herself back towards the mattress, intent on devouring every last bite.
I bit into my poor excuse for a meal, the flesh soft and mealy, wind-knocked and fit only for cider.
On the second bite, my tooth struck something coarse, unyielding beneath the apple’s give.
I paused.
Inside the bruised flesh, a thin strip pierced through its middle. I nudged it with a fingertip, my stomach cartwheeling.