Chapter 35 #2
Though, my relief was fleeting, for staring up at me, round and defiant, were the eyes of Esioul.
I closed my fingers around them, firm but careful, and brought them to my heart. If he wanted them back, he’d have to break every knuckle.
“They were not yours to take.” I levelled my gaze at his veil, pulsing my hand around the shard of carafe. Was she dead? Was Demetri?
“Perchance I shall claim one of thine.” His gloved finger tip brushed the soft curve of flesh under my eye, tracing its arch.
It was the scuttle of a cockroach and I tried not to balk, letting him do as he wished, for now.
He moved on to the other, as if weighing which jewel to pluck from which socket.
“Emeralds are more valuable than obsidian,” he mused.
“How fair they would look, set within a chain. Perchance I shall fix one upon my wrist, that thou mayst walk with me always, ever within my reach; a token that it was mine absolving hand that guided thee unto our Lord’s true will.
For I am but a loyal druid, as ever I have been. ”
“Your loyalty is a cruel thing, faithful only to pain. It is you who is the true butcher of the Dendralis. And I warn you,” I said, extending my neck and inching closer to his mesh.
“You put your godsdamned fingers anywhere near my eyes, and I’ll bite them off, absolving hand or not.
” I bared my teeth like the animal I promised him I was.
A swelling breath rattled his chest, tracing the sharp line of his ribs beneath the cloth covering.
He nodded to the acolyte who clasped my arm on the left.
“Throllo, make certain her hands are pinned, and that she keepeth the heathen’s eyes within her sight.
I desire their witness.” His helm tilted as he addressed the acolyte to my rear. “Put her upon the cot, Pietr.”
Pietr?
The name was a taper, dripping memories like wax down the length of my spine—of tables, of straps, and of cold, searching hands.
I screamed then, thrashing as though aflame, desperate to be free of their grip.
My flesh ached beneath the unyielding press of their hold as they wrestled me, wailing and writhing, onto the cot.
One pinned my feet, Pietr my hips, Throllo my wrists.
I clenched my hands, spitting curses at their blank, expressionless faces.
One palm closed around Esioul’s eyes, the other against the glass beneath me.
I bucked against them, kicking and flailing. Sweat gathered at my brow as I pushed with what little strength remained, the ache in my muscles a tell it was draining away. I would need to keep some of it for the terrors to come.
Falstaff’s face hovered a nose-width above me, his veil of chain resting along the base of my neck, heavy enough to choke.
“As I was saying unto thee, laurel—the humours.” Carrion laced his breath. I heaved.
“‘Tis a most fascinating theory…how several parts of the body may harbour differing fluids, and thereby shape the quality of the blood that floweth there. Some healers have sought to gainsay it of late.” He scoffed, moving farther from me until his veil no longer pooled at my throat.
“Yet, I hath lived long enough to know the sciences of the human form are a fickle art. Beliefs do shift, only to circle back unto their beginnings, not decades hence. And truly, it can do no harm to test a theory, can it?”
He patted my thigh, as though offering some bastardised comfort. “Throllo, bring the scalpel.”
Pietr shifted, his hand replacing Throllo’s now-occupied grip at my wrist. My forearm buzzed with the protest of his flesh upon mine and I avoided his eyes, terrified of what I’d find there more than any penance Falstaff could afford.
From the knot at his belt, Throllo plucked a spike longer than the rest, one not stained orange with rust, but gleaming silver—clean steel, primed, and ready for surgery.
There was no way to guess the distinct brand of pain it would bring. I imagined a keen sting, like vinegar poured on a cut, but more potent, somehow. Esioul’s eyes grew slippery, wetted by the sweat seeping from every pore.
Falstaff took the blade without thanks, his sinuous hands trembling slightly.
I tensed every muscle, wringing one final attempt at escape through every sinew and vein. But blessing of mercy or no, it wasn’t enough.
“Oh, child,” he creaked closer, the mesh chafing against my jaw. “These efforts are but in vain. Thou shalt not leave this cot for a long while yet, not until we have gathered that which the Blood God demands.”
Breathing hard and fast, my traitorous eyes darted to the locked door and then my pillow, the books’ edges barely hidden under the stuffed linen. I couldn’t help the way they flicked towards the armoire.
Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? We plummet together.
He rested his hand, the one wrapped around the scalpel, atop my stomach, relaxing it until it pressed down with his full weight.
Though skeletal, it may as well have been a boulder, for how it pressed me into the down.
I silently cursed my blessing and its absence, for a stranger’s euphoria would help me endure far more than my dark, deep dread.
“Where were we? Ah, yes—the humours. The liver, to wit.” He skimmed his hand down to the soft flesh of my lower abdomen, veering slightly to the right.
“A seat of bile; the blood that floweth through and about this organ is thought to take on its purifying virtue, able even to dull the deadliest of poisons. Why, if but a single drop of thine could make the earth tremble, then perchance a sample drawn hence might serve as an antidote against death itself.”
“It was not my blood!” I yelled, though a seed of resolution settled just under where his scalpel hovered. “Druid Vetrius has enough of it to fill a quarry, pray, ask him of it! It was a mercy of the Blood God, and I ask for your mercy now.”
He sliced through my skirts, exposing a line of flesh to the air. The acolyte holding my legs thrust his full body into his hold, my lower half contorting away from the blade. “Pietr, the vial.”
His fingers rummaged until they produced a translucent, tubular device from his robes. I jolted as its coolness pressed against the heat of my skin. I was panting, aching to sprint from their touch.
Perhaps… perhaps he would not come. Him and my blessing both.
Falstaff cut, unseaming my flesh in one smooth, precise glide. It stung as the blade parted my skin, though not as much as the whip, but it was too late to take back the hiss through my teeth.
“‘Tis but a scratch, laurel,” he tutted, helm intent on the vial that filled with my blood. “‘Tis enough. Seal it.” Neck craning, I beheld as he lifted the fruit of his labours up to the light, handling it delicately. It looked like the blood of any other Thromarrian—like Demetri’s that had run down his back, or the cobbler’s that had streamed from his tongue, or the crusiax’s thighs, or the wings of the owl; red, viscous, bright.
A sob bubbled up from the depths of me, and I had no strength to banish it away.
He isn’t coming.
Pietr tore a square from the linens and pressed it to the gash, a fresh spike of pain spearing outwards. Though clean, it must have run deep, for the white cloth dripped red in the span of a few breaths. He ripped off some more, scrunching the fabric and wedging into my skirts.
Meanwhile, Falstaff pocketed the vial and swivelled back to the cot, a smugness in the rigid angle of his shoulders that hadn’t been there before.
“Whereas the chest, the dwelling of the lungs and the heart, harboureth phlegm: a thick, gelatinous humour thought able to temper and dull hysteria or panic. A stopper, if thou wilt. A safeguard against disturbance.”
“You lecture as though I am your tutee, and not a cadaver for your perverse curiosities.” My voice shook, though not as much as his hands.
“The blood that courseth through the heart is a feverish thing,” he continued, ignoring me as the acolytes pressed harder.
“Roaring with emotion that, if left unchecked, would consume us. Yet, we cannot crack open thy chest this day to slice into thy heart, laurel”—I could almost picture his sullen pout behind the mesh—“for as enlightening as such a thing might be, His Eminence hath insisted that thou remain alive.”
Without warning, Throllo pinched my neckline, stretching it taut. Before I could register why, Falstaff’s scalpel severed it into two, down to my navel, the folds of grey wool parting to the sides like petals.
I lay exposed to them, the parts of me that were mine, and mine alone, on display for their whims.
It wasn’t lust that quickened Falstaff’s chest, but another, uglier pleasure. One he gleaned from humiliation, panic, and pain. I tempered a sob, resolute to not cry. Men like Falstaff made merry from tears and I would look as they did this to me.
I would look.
“If we took a sample from you, Druid, no matter the source, would it make cocks shrivel and maidens flee?” I asked.
His anger was good. Anger meant time. Time for Vetrius to arrive, or time to plummet together.
He peeled his gaze from my breasts, his grip hardening on the blade.
“The Blood God hath deemed fit to enact an additional penance, for the vileness of thine tongue. I hath allowed you too many quips, and my patience is spent. I’ll be taking it, once we’re done, laurel.
Thou hast used it to blaspheme for the last time.
” He nudged the scalpel to the dip of my throat, a small sting insinuating that he’d drawn blood.
“A heathen’s eyes, a seamstress’ tongue…
perchance I’ll add a crusiax’s ears to the collection.
The face of insubordination, I’ll call it, when I lay them forth before mine enclave.
” He retracted the scalpel. “But not yet. Not before we take a sample from here.” Pressing one knobular finger into the soft mound of my breast, he indented its skin, a hair width from the peak of my nipple.
My scream was a wild thing, swirling in the base of my throat, but I clamped my lips down, locking it in like an Unmantle made flesh. He would not get to see every part of me.
“A woman’s breasts are a marvel, are they not?
” Falstaff mused, the acolytes sniggering as they clung to my body.
“Simple men, given to lesser virtues, seem oft fascinated by them, long after they are babes.” He drew circles with the scalpel’s point around the darker circle of tissue, puckering my skin until it bordered on pain.
The softness of me shook under his touch, quivering like the cobbler on straw.
It was too late now. Vetrius would not come. Demetri and I would not plummet together. My blessing had deserted me when I needed it most. All I could do was endure.
“Even if thy own are rather fair, I hath never understood the obsession myself—they are but flesh, sinew, fat. But the blood…” A ripple of something unnameable tremored through him; it was a wonder I could not hear the rattle of his bones.
He pressed the knife harder into my skin.
“If taken from a woman’s bosom, it adopts the properties of milk—replenishing, restoring, building strength… even power.”
He cut.
It was a gnarly attempt, what with the shaking of his hands.
I beheld it from the head of the cot, as if the body he carved into was no longer mine, the tissue opening to reveal layers of veins, fibrous muscle and fat, yellow beneath the flushed pink flesh.
Blood welled at once, dark and bright, beading like garnets across the incision.
It hurt. Oh, yes, it hurt. But in a different way to the whip, or a strike, or a kick.
Instead of burning, instead of an ache, it was clarifying.
He wasn’t coming, and neither was my blessing.
“Remember to pinch it, Throllo, to channel the blood. Taketh this, Arthun.” Falstaff passed a vial to the acolyte at my feet, taking care to lower the scalpel until it rested with the blade overhanging the edge of the bed.
“Take of each humour a measure, whilst I make mine inquisition.” He leered over me, the tinkling of the vial in his pocket punctuating the rush of blood in my ears.
“I’ll be back for thy tongue, and mine eyes. Let them watch. Blood Demands Blood.”
The door clicked shut as Falstaff left.
“Pinch it,” Pietr reminded Throllo as his hand veered to my breast. “Pinch it tight.”
The breath it took Pietr to replace Throllo’s hand on my wrist was all that I needed.
With one slash of the shard, Throllo’s throat split, warmth from above spilling into my mouth, drenching me in the heat I had longed for my blessing to bring.
And that’s when I felt it…the flower bloom in my chest.