The Justification of the Repayment of an Eye
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What if Matthew truly couldn't bear the murder of his love? What if regret was not enough?
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Matthew smiles as he slips the knife into a small inside pocket of his vest. You'd be proud of me, he says as he closes the vest over his body loosely, his hand keeping the knife in plain view. I'll defend you even if you don't have the means to defend yourself. I will honor you. That is a promise.
The group of travelers has made camp near a mountain range. Tents have been pitched, and in the center of the grouping, a powerful wood fire rages. Blasphemous, he stands in front of the fire, looking, watching. He prays to the flame that he will not die before the other man does. His knife shares his sentiments. He stalks away, the flames crackling and hissing in his absence.
Matthew knows where the assassin's tent is, just as he knows right from wrong, just as he knows what Elimine preaches against retribution at the hands of men, just as he knows who his knife should really be turned on. But Elimine never loved a woman like he loved a woman, Matthew mutters quietly. And there is no time for rationality with murder on his mind.
I'm doing a good deed.
He looks around, trying to dredge up the location of the assassin's tent in his memory. It was, after all, just this eve they made camp. Matthew stops near the entrance to one tent- the sides are mercifully opaque- and stands, hearing but not listening. He hears the little girl's voice, and wherever she goes…
Matthew hears his voice- the low, preoccupied rasp of a killer. That voice…it is the voice of a murderer. To rid the world of this man would be doing it a favor. No man with that voice deserves to live, a constant haunt to the world. He would be a hero, Matthew thinks. No high court or jury would condemn the man, and karmic justice is far too slow. I'm doing a good deed.
And to think, the idea of this man living the rest of his days, "repentant", while the revolutionaries from Old Pherae so many years ago met such a painful death merely for wanting the justice they so richly deserved. To have the memories of all these good people ripped apart, to rip out their hearts, to rip out their tongues, to rip out the hands and the fingers with which they wove their writ, all while this madman lives on with ten thousand notches coursing on his palms!
Matthew breathes in, scowls, madness on his face, incensed. The world is better without him! He withdraws his knife, conceals it within his sleeve. She was honorable, as honorable as a spy thrust into unfavorable situations could be. The tumblers in his mind kick, and finally finds her name. He dedicates this to her memory, and slips into the tent with a loose smile on his face.
"You. Jaffar. I wanted to apologize," he says, standing in the frame of the tent. He has to restrain himself from retching as he speaks the man's name. "I…shouldn't have threatened you. I was wrong. Forgive me."
The green-haired girl sits on a small cot while Jaffar stands, and Matthew averts his eyes from the little one.
"…there is no sin to forgive."
"I was out of line. Forgive me."
Quiet.
"Shake?" Matthew extends his left hand, his right arm held aside at a ninety-degree angle. The other man eyes Matthew's hand with a blank curiosity, turns his head and looks to the girl, who nods in the hand's direction Jaffar steps forward, extending his hand slowly, shaking limply, looking into Matthew's face as it turns from an amicable smile to a glittering sea of rage. A knife slips cleanly and silently from his long right sleeve into his right hand, and Matthew plunges it into the assassin's neck. It is happening. A good deed, I'm doing a good deed. The assassin's eyes flutter and his body twitches, his free hand caught halfway between his own body and the offending arm. Instinctively, Matthew stabs again, then he stabs again, and again he stabs until the dead man lies- a man, dead, on the floor. He twists the last stab.
The girl gasps and falls to her knees, taking the victim by the hand and clenching it tightly. Delirious, he doesn't know the place he is in, nor the people around, and he speaks only one word, "friend", slowly and deliberately like a child learning to speak for the first time. The girl unburdens him of the two singular possessions on his person: two vulneraries. Matthew stands still, looking but not watching, and he ponders whether Elimine would understand him. In the end, he realizes that is unimportant anyway.
The girl is crying in the dead man's absence, her head on his chest, rubbing his cheek. Let her cry. Someone needs to repay the tears I shed, Matthew thinks, looking down at them from above the world. At length, the girl looks up at Matthew and chokes a plea for help through handfuls of sobs and jogs his memory into action. The look the girl gives him…he feels no pity for the murderer's death, and the girl only reminds him just how many innocents were thrown in the path of his influence. Matthew steps back slowly. He has done a good deed, no one can deny that...
The only word the dead man whispered: friend, friend, friend…
Friends…Jaffar and that girl had been friends. Well, we were friends too, Matthew thinks. We were lovers. He should have thought about that, Matthew thinks, before butchering her! Matthew sneers even deeper, the handle of the knife cutting into his palm. He laughs and his shoulders tremble. Why did the girl have to be there? She should have been somewhere else. If only she hadn't seen this...though realistically it couldn't have been helped, he rationalizes. He would have killed another one of us!
He runs outside, the dim orange light faded, and he is disoriented, he can't see correctly. Maybe the fire has been put out; he feels like he's looking at everything through one eye. He stumbles momentarily before finding his balance again. He feels nauseated, but the deed has passed, and so too will the pain of doubt. Every decision to make, right or wrong, bears the weight of doubt.
Matthew slips away through the night, knowing there is little time to waste. Escape is the only option left. Soon they would find the body, or the girl would fetch them to see the body. He holds the knife and he laughs- but he is not smiling.
The only thing the bloodied weapon reminds him of is how he did a good deed.