Chapter Twenty-Seven - Return to Tidehall
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Return to Tidehall
THE CARRIAGE ROLLED through the colourful silk streets of the Velvet Tide and Rosamund cursed herself for waiting for so long to do this.
The second she saw the bruise on Elswyth’s arm she should have told the woman to come with her.
The woman who had shown her nothing but kindness and care; where had Rosamund been when Elswyth had needed her?
Lost in her own pain. Selfishly barrelling through Elswyth and Dorian’s world not caring who she hurt or what the consequences might be.
Not anymore. She would let Elswyth know that someone was there, someone was listening. That she was not alone.
If she is even still there…
Elswyth had not been at Bastian’s dinner.
That was surely not coincidence. What Rosamund could not figure out was why.
Bastian had wanted to make a spectacle of the whole situation, so why not to his wife as well?
He seemed to love an audience as much as Aurelian did.
Perhaps it was not that Bastian did not want her there.
Perhaps she physically could not be there.
I’ll carry her out if I have too.
The Velvet Tide at night was a seedy, depraved district, but she had always admired it during the day.
The colourful awnings, the merchants hawking their wares.
Now when she looked out at the too bright streets, she saw the breaks in the facade.
The washed-out colours, the cracks in the face paint of the performers, the peeling walls and frayed fabrics.
Even the smiles of the people felt stretched, their faces gaunt.
Dorian ran himself ragged providing for his district.
Whatever money Bastian had left was poured back into the gaming tables.
These people had nothing except what they could fight and scrape for, and Bastian continued to take and take and take from them.
The Velvet Tide was everything that others expected The Veil to be.
A district of the destitute and desperate.
It was no wonder Bastian grasped for more; would there be any end to his destructive appetite? Would it ever be enough?
The rotting corpses of the Darnwells still hung from the gates as the carriage rolled through.
Rosamund forced herself not to avert her eyes, even as her stomach turned.
She would not look away. Their deaths were on her hands just as much as they were on Bastians.
She would not do them the dishonour of looking away.
The carriage pulled up in front of the large doors, and Tomas jumped down from the seat to open the door for her.
“Are you sure about this M’lady?” he asked quietly as he held out a hand to help her down.
“No,” she whispered back, “but I’ve got to try,” she smiled grateful at him, “wait here, I don’t plan to be here long.”
Steeling herself, she made her way up the stairs. The doors opened before she reached them and a harried looking servant came rushing out to meet her halfway.
“Lady Rosamund,” he said, his white linens creased, “we were not expecting you.”
“Really? I sent a card,” she lied and moved to step past him.
He quickly shuffled up to block her path, “we did not receive it. I am afraid her highness will not be seeing visitors today.”
Rosamund brought herself up to her full height in a manner not too dissimilar from her betrothed.
She tried to mimic the way he loomed over her and arched an eyebrow in the same way her mother used too when her father had said something she did not approve of.
Then calling on her best impression of Lavinia she said archly, “Then it’s just as well I’m not a visitor. I am family.”
Without waiting on a response she swept through the large doors and into the wide circular foyer.
It was emptier than usual. When she arrived before it had been awash with servants and light, now only one solitary Wytchfyre light glowed from the top of the stairs, the sunlight drizzling in through the windows bathing the room in a wine red gloom.
The servant from the stairs caught up with her, out of breath and the only one there.
She looked to his creased linens and frowned.
Elswyth had always impressed upon her the presentation of ones servants.
She would never have allowed anyone to greet a visitor at the door in such a state.
Something was wrong.
“My Lady, I’m afraid you will have to leave-.”
“Elswyth!” shouted Rosamund as she approached the stairs, “ELSWYTH! IT’S ME! I KNOW YOU’RE HERE!”
The panicked servant followed her as she climbed up the stairs, “My Lady please! You must leave.”
“Not without seeing her highness,” said Rosamund before continuing to shout, “ELSWYTH! ELSWYTH!”
“My Lady!” pleaded the servant as he tried to grab at her arm.
“Get off me!” she snapped, pulling her arm back, “ELSWYTH!”
“I’m here.”
Her soft, warm voice barely carried down the stairs towards her.
Rosamund nearly missed the next step as she looked up at the older woman limping down the stairs towards her.
Elswyth leaned against the stone banister and Rosamund immediately launched herself up the stairs to help the woman.
The closer she got, the more her heart broke.
Elswyth, who had always dressed so elegantly, who had reworked her old dresses time and time again in such a wonderful fashion was dressed only in a long sleeveless nightgown.
Her wrists had thick black and red rings around them, her arms covered in yellowing spots.
She wrapped one arm around her stomach as she walked, her teeth gritted together.
Her left eye swollen, her lip cut and bruised.
Her long chestnut hair was loose, matted and soaked.
Her dress too, the white linen clinging to her as if she had just risen from a bath.
She watched as droplets of water fell from her hair onto her pale neck interrupted by long black shadow fingers that marked it.
“Rosamund,” rasped Elswyth, Rosamund put her arm around her to hold her up.
“I’m here Elswyth.”
It was worse than she thought. How long had he been doing this to her?
It looked like he had beaten her half to death.
Likee he had drowned her. Tortured her. The rage in her rose, the guilt, the hatred, she channelled it all into wrapping her arm around the other woman, encouraging her to lean on her.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here.”
Elswyth did not move. Even when Rosamund tried to take most of her weight the older woman resisted. She looked up into the other woman’s face and saw nothing but defeat.
“We have to go. Please.”
“No,” said Elswyth.
Rosamund shook her head and gently tried to move her down the step again. There was not much left to the woman, despite being shorter, Rosamund found she could easily lift her. She stopped at the second step when she heard Elswyth’s sharp intake of breath.
“Elswyth, look at what he’s done to you,” said Rosamund gently, “I’m getting you out of here.”
“You can’t,” said Elswyth, even as Rosamund gently tried to coax her forward again, “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” said Rosamund firmly, holding tight and not letting go, “I’ll help you.”
“No!”
Elswyth clutched tightly, a sudden fire to her. The eye that had not swollen was bright and angry. No. Not angry. Scared.
“Go, home, Rosamund,” she said through ragged breaths.
“Elswyth, you can’t stay here. Come with me, please.”
“You don’t get it,” said Elswyth, tears filling her green eyes, “he will find me. Wherever I am, he will find me. And if he finds you here, he will,” she cut herself off, closing her eyes and wincing in pain, “please Rosamund, go, get out of here. And don’t come back.”
“We can protect you. Behind the walls of The Veil you’ll be safe, I promise Elswyth. Just come with me,” begged Rosamund, “please, come with me.”
“I can’t,” said Elswyth as she tried to pull away from Rosamund and struggled to stay on her feet.
She caught her again before the woman fully sunk to the floor. Rosamund gently lowered her the rest of the way and sat down beside her, wrapping her in her arms as Elswyth sobbed into her shoulder.
“You have to go, you have to go,” she murmured into Rosamund’s cloak, but she only held the princess tighter.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said firmly.
“He, he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t know how to control it, when the storm comes,” said Elswyth through her tears, “he, he wasn’t always like this.
It, it consumes him. The power, he doesn’t mean it, but you must leave.
Let me talk to him, I can bring him around.
He won’t hurt Dorian; I’ll speak to him. Just please, you need to go.”
Maybe they all go bad.
Her heart ached. After everything he had put her through, she loved him.
She still loved him. Rosamund could hear it in her voice, see it in her face.
Despite all the ways that Bastian had hurt her, she forgave him.
Perhaps there was still some part of her that thought that she could fix him.
Maybe she was right and he was not always this way.
Maybe there had been a time where that charming facade had been the truth.
Maybe he had loved her, and she could not forget that.
“Elswyth,” said Rosamund softly, holding the other woman’s face gently, “what he’s done to you, you don’t do this to someone you love.”
The other woman shook her head, almost pleading, willing Rosamund’s words not to be true.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Elswyth and before Rosamund could interrupt, she continued, “you have to leave, he can’t find you he-.”
“Elswyth?”
She felt the woman in her arms tense as she gripped tightly to Rosamund’s cloak.
She could feel her own heart begin to race as she snapped her head round to look at the man now slowly descending the staircase towards them.
He was the picture of concern, his usual smirk had been replaced with a pained frown as he focused on his wife.