Belle thought she knew what exhaustion was, what it was to be pushed and driven till she collapsed, feeling like nothing more than a damp rag. Now, being dragged somewhere back to a point between sleep and waking, she thought she knew what it meant to collapse, to be completely drained, and still find herself forced to come back and face the world. She was so tired, it hurt.
Everything hurt.
She was lying on her side. Dimly, she remembered falling. She remembered panic and fear and falling.
Being awake—being alive—meant facing all that again.
She whimpered, her hand clutching her locket. Rumplestiltskin, help me. I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. Help me.
Hands, warm and soft, touched the back of her neck and shoulders.
"Belle?" a familiar voice said softly, as if afraid of waking her up. "Sweetheart, it's all right."
Dreams. She had dreams like this, that her husband was still with her, that she was safe at home with him and Bae, and everything else was just a bad dream. She let go of her locket, reaching out for his hand.
Part of her expected to find this was a nightmare, to wake and realize she was holding the Dark One's clawed hand or the sheriff's—or worse, that the Dark One and his castle, and even Gaston and Lord Maurice's court were nothing but a dream and it was Jones lying beside her, Jones she was reaching out for.
But, the hand that closed so comfortingly around hers was familiar to her touch. It was small but long fingered, with the calluses of a spinner and weaver yet still soft from handling the lanolin in the wool. Even his nails, she thought, running a finger over the tips of his fingers, cut short and kept free of rough edges that would catch on his thread instead of the Dark One's talons. It was him.
"Rumplestiltskin. . . ?"
"Here, sweetheart."
"It hurts." She was crying. She hadn't meant to cry, not when he was here for this small moment (a part of her knew he would be gone—he always was—when she woke, but it was so hard to remember). "It won't stop hurting. I've tried. But, I can't—I can't—" She didn't know what it was she couldn't do. Couldn't keep fighting. Couldn't stand and pretend it didn't hurt. Couldn't smile and be dead inside when one man handed her off to another with orders to do as she was bid.
"Shh, it's all right. You don't need to. I'm here now." His hands began to gently knead the painful knots in her neck and shoulders, the way he used to when she was worried or afraid.
It's not real.
"You're not here," she said. "Not really."
"Real enough, sweetheart. Now, rest. You need to rest. I promise I'll watch over you."
"I love you," she whispered, feeling herself slipping further back into sleep. "I miss you."
She felt something brush against her hair. Had he kissed her? "I miss you, too, sweetheart." His voice was rough. Something in it reminded her of another voice. . . . It slipped away.
Later, she thought. I'll think about it later.
It was a dream. It was always a dream. But, she was too tired to fight the comfort it gave. Real or not, she let herself believe she was warm and safe and in the strong embrace of a man who wanted nothing except to keep her safe—even though she knew these things never happened outside of dreams.
X
Rumplestiltskin was spinning, trying to calm the turbulence inside him.
When Belle had fled, he'd turned his attention to the sheriff. "I lied," he told him. "She is a goddess. And she should be treated like one." He tittered madly as he waved his hand and showed the sheriff his tongue, lying in his hand, taloned fingers closing over it. "What do you think is a proper punishment for blasphemy?"
They had come to a mutually satisfying deal after that. The sheriff got to leave in one piece (with an understanding of what pieces he would lose if he ever insulted Belle again), and Rumplestiltskin got an enjoyable afternoon. Or an afternoon he should have enjoyed.
He kept seeing Belle's face before he told her to leave.
She'd been white as a ghost, nearly as white as she'd been last night when Rumplestiltskin almost kissed her.
Rumplestiltskin remembered Jones saying how Belle had sold herself in every port they came to—and how she'd enjoyed it. Either the captain had been wrong or two-and-a-half years as Gaston's mistress had changed her. Or there was another answer he wasn't seeing.
Whatever her feelings towards lovers, he knew she'd been upset at Bae's little prayer for revenge at All Souls. Rumplestiltskin could only imagine how she'd have reacted if she saw him tearing out body parts, no matter how painlessly. And even if he put them back where he'd found them. There was nothing to ruin a little bit of well-earned revenge like the person you were avenging having weeping fits or (worse) a case of the vapors over your victim.
He spun the wheel, trying not to see the horror in Belle's eyes at the inn. He was nothing like Gisborne. Only a fool would think otherwise—and Belle was no fool, whatever else she might be. He was imagining things.
He was repeating this to himself again, when Bae burst into the hall, his eyes wide with fear.
"Mama," he said. "I can't find Mama."
Rumplestiltskin's first impulse was to say something sarcastic—he didn't want to hear about Belle right now—but he bit it back. Frightened as he was, Bae wouldn't appreciate it. Besides, Rumplestiltskin had seen Belle with Bae. In her way, he could be as protective (some would say as overprotective [Rumplestiltskin wouldn't]) as he was. He looked at the pile of gold he'd spun. How long since he finished with Gisborne? About as long as it took Belle to finish cleaning the cups and dishes from tea. She should be done by now.
Except, she hadn't come back for the tea tray.
That wasn't like her. But, Rumplestiltskin remembered the fear in her eyes as he'd told her to go and the even greater fear when Gisborne named her as his price. She had reason enough to stay out of the great hall.
"The castle will show you the way, if you ask it," he said.
"I did. The lights led outside. I can't open the door."
"What?" Rumplestiltskin got up. "Show me."
There was a door to the battlements in the passageway just outside the great hall. Rumplestiltskin concentrated, wondering if Bae had somehow misphrased his request. But, the lights stayed unchanged, glowing by the door. "Where's Belle?" he demanded out loud, the words more like a crocodile's rumble than a human voice. Bae flinched at the sound, but the lights still didn't alter.
"Stay here," Rumplestiltskin ordered Bae before running outside.
The door slammed shut behind him before Bae could follow, the castle's defenses in action. The biting wind would be too much for a small child, even for a few minutes, and he'd ordered the castle to protect Bae.
He'd given no such orders for Belle.
There were torches along the side of the castle. Normal ones wouldn't stay lit in this storm and normal eyes wouldn't be able to see them if they did. Fortunately, "normal" had very little to do with the Dark Castle and its master. He followed the line of flames to the stairs leading down the battlements and leapt down them. The lights stopped at the foot of the stairway. Confused, he looked around, searching till he saw the small snowdrift that wasn't a snowdrift.
Rumplestiltskin reached down, brushing the light layer of snow away, revealing an ice pale face beneath.
Belle. It was Belle.
All Rumplestiltskin could think for a moment was to be glad where she fell. There was snow enough here to break her fall but still enough wind to keep her from being buried too deeply. She'd have been able to breathe.
If she was still alive.
Rumplestiltskin scooped Belle up, looking at her with magic as well as normal senses (or his abnormal versions of them). She was cold and her breaths were shallow and barely detectable, even to him. Her heartbeat was slow and growing slower. But, the spark of life was there inside her where he could feel it. Clutching Belle to his chest, he rushed up the stairs back to the door, where it swung out of his way (if a door could be frightened, this one was cowering in terror), letting him in.
"Mama?" Bae cried when he saw what Rumplestiltskin carried. "What happened to Mama?"
That's what I'd very much like to know. "She fell," Rumplestiltskin said. "Quickly, we need to get her to the great hall." He was already striding past Bae, doors flying open before him. Rumplestiltskin raced to the fireplace, making the flames burst into a small inferno to warm the room. "Get me the fleece," he told Bae as the boy caught up with him. "Hurry!"
Bae ran to the table where the golden fleece was displayed while Rumplestiltskin dealt with Belle's cloths. He wasn't sure how long she had lain in the snow, but it was long enough for the snow to first melt against her dress and then turn to ice as her body lost the little heat it had. It was worse than useless now, chilling her as it thawed. He didn't bother with buttons, just reaching into the back of the collar and shredding it apart with his claws. He spat a curse at her boots, bursting them at the seams. A quick glance at her locket simply undid the catch and let it fall away. Metal was the opposite problem from ice. It would absorb heat, even to the point of burning her skin, while the rest of her still froze. He ignored it where it fell, tearing away the rest of her frozen dress and shift.
And stopped.
Rumplestiltskin stared.
Belle's back was covered with scars.
There were layers of them. He reached out his hand and traced one of the oldest, the thin line of a whipping scar. Laying over it were the thicker, more ragged marks of flogging, a forest of them, branching out like a thick web of trees.
He knew scars. It was the one rational thought he could hold onto at that moment. People called on him in desperation and anger—and for revenge. He'd seen more than his share of injuries.
Whippings. Those were favored on land where thin lengths of wood, riders' crops, and larger strips of leather were easily found. Flogging was a seaman's punishment.
Rumplestiltskin ran his fingers across more of the lines, inventorying the marks as he tried to make sense of them. The cat-o-nine-tails left a distinctive pattern, if you knew what to look for. The knotted cords struck together, branching from a common grip. When the officers were being especially vindictive, they had the victim first struck by someone right-handed. Then, the flogger either switched hands or the captain called on a left-handed crewman—a naturally left-handed man hit harder and straighter. That way, the cuts criss-crossed over each other, making it that much harder to move without pain and harder for the wounds not to be reopened.
Rumplestiltskin touched a round, lumpish scar where one of the knots in the cat had struck. That was the cruelest punishment, worse than the two-handed flogging, putting sharp bits of metal or jagged edged debris tied into the cords, the better to rip the flesh.
No. This didn't make sense. What he was seeing didn't make sense. He'd seen the passion in Jones' eyes when he spoke of Belle. His wildcat, he'd called her.
"Quite a pair of claws on her," Jones had said. "Sometimes, it was a fight to get her to pull them in."
Fight. Claws. Scars.
There was layer after layer of marks from beatings. It was hard to count the number of times this had been done to her.
"My lord?"
Rumplestiltskin looked up. Bae was standing by him. He looked frightened and confused. He was clutching the fleece. "My lord? What—what should I do with this?"
It took Rumplestiltskin a moment to understand what he was asking. The fleece. Belle needed the fleece. "Spread it on the floor," he told the boy. "In front of the fire."
Bae did as he was told. Rumplestiltskin put Belle down on the golden wool. The hide had been large when Bae put it down—it came from a good sized ram, after all, one large enough to carry two children on its back—but now it grew to almost the size of a cowhide. Rumplestiltskin folded it around Belle. Then, he gathered her back up in his arms. Bae watched, silent and terrified.
Explanations, Rumplestiltskin thought, his slow brain beginning to move. He knew how to calm a frightened child. Whether rescuing them from Ogres or taking them as payment, he'd done it often enough. Give him answers. Children's fears grew on feeling powerless and not understanding why terrible things were happening. Reduce it to something simple and comprehensible, something they had power over.
Above all, speak in a reassuring voice. Show no fear, no matter what you felt yourself.
"Your mother fell," he told him, not sure if that was the truth. "It must have stunned her. In a storm like this, that's dangerous. It doesn't take long for the cold to get the better of you." Bae nodded mutely, not asking the question that was burning in Rumplestiltskin's brain: Why had Belle gone outside in a raging blizzard without even a shawl to protect her? Had she stumbled blindly? Or had she given up, laying herself down in the snow?
"Her clothes were soaked with ice. Have you ever been caught in the rain on a cold day?" Bae nodded, still wordless. "It's hard to get warm before your clothes dry, isn't it? And your mama can't wait for that. That's why I had to get rid of her clothes. This fleece is magic. It came from a magic ram who had sunlight woven into him—he could even fly. The fleece can heal and protect, but it's especially good against cold. Here, see? Feel some of the wool."
Bae reached out nervously and brushed his fingers against a little tuft right by the edge of the hide. His eyes widened. "It's warm!"
Good. He was speaking again. Even if the words had been startled out of him. "Yes, and it's putting all that warmth into your mama. I'm using magic to watch what's happening inside her, to see how her heart's beating and make sure nothing else is happening that shouldn't." He moved closer to the fire, still holding Belle. The child, he saw, was still afraid. It was marked on every inch of his face. "She's going to be all right, Bae," he assured him.
As far as her body went, it was true. Rumplestiltskin had to watch her, make sure icy blood didn't move too quickly from frozen limbs and damage her heart or any other organ in her body, make sure hands and feet healed instead of being lost to frostbite. But, her body was easy to heal.
He needed to give Bae something to do. Rumplestiltskin summoned a bottle from his workroom into his hand. The liquid inside glowed, only a little less bright than molten gold. "Do you know what this is? This is a healing potion pressed from sun-flowers. The real kind. Untwist the stopper, will you? This will help your mama."
He held the bottle out to Bae, keeping his grip on it as the little boy twisted the cap, pulling it off. Rumplestiltskin murmured his approval. Then, he lifted Belle up and pressed the bottle to her lips—they had a blue tinge, and her face was nearly bloodless. He counted the drops. Seven. That was as much as he dared. When he was done, Belle was still white, but her lips had turned a very faint shade of pink and a hint of color worked into her cheeks.
Rumplestiltskin lowered her onto the floor. Concentrating, he summoned pillows from one of the many rooms above. Careful not to loosen the fleece from around Belle, he raised her feet and put the pillows under her legs.
"We want the blood to flow to her head and heart. That's what's best for her now," Rumplestiltskin said. But, he still needed to watch her closely. There were too many things that could go wrong—things he could fix, easily, but only if he saw them happening. Magic had a price, and the price became tangled and confused when he tried to see it in Belle. Safest to keep this simple, to watch and use only small magics as necessary.
He looked at Bae. The boy was almost as pale as Belle. "You did the right thing," he reassured his son. "You knew something was wrong and you came and got me in time. Everything will be all right, thanks to you."
It wasn't all right. Belle had run out onto the battlements in a storm. She had fallen and nearly died. By accident. It had to be by accident.
Bae nodded jerkily. He looked as bewildered and frightened as he had the night Maurice's guards dragged him from his bed into the ball.
Rumplestiltskin needed something to distract him. He saw the locket lying on the ground and picked it up. "This is your mama's, isn't it?" Rumplestiltskin thought of the many times he'd seen Belle's hand go to it, always when she was frightened or worried (he thought of how many times something he'd said or done made her reach for it). It was her talisman, he thought, though he didn't know why. "Did Lord Gaston give this to her?"
Bae shrugged. What did a six year old boy know or care about his mother's jewelry? Not that Rumplestiltskin needed him to know. It had Gaston's family crest on it. So, had Gaston thought of Belle as family? Or was this more along the lines of a dog's collar, something to tell people who the owner was?
Or had it been to let people know Belle was under his protection? That he would defend her the way Rumplestiltskin never had?
Rumplestiltskin flipped it open. He was expecting a portrait—Gaston trying very hard to look intelligent and dashing—or perhaps a luck charm. Instead, there was a childish sketch. "Did you do this?" he asked.
Bae nodded eagerly. "Mama had a picture of Lord Gaston but she got rid of it after we came her. I drew that for her. It's Papa."
It's Papa.
"You—you did a very good job." Very faintly, along the edge, Rumplestiltskin could make out a worn spot. The new portrait wasn't the only time the center part of the locket was taken out. Careful not to damage Bae's drawing, Rumplestiltskin removed it.
For a second, his fingers tingled, as if he'd brushed against lightning.
It was only a lock of hair, lank and dull brown. But, it was his.
A lock of hair of the Dark One. There were wizards and witches who would pay blood—their own as well as others—for this.
But, that wasn't why Belle had it. It was the custom in the Frontlands, a common remembrance. Probably every man in the village had cut a lock to give to woman close to him before he left for war. Just as he'd given one to Belle, one she kept by her all these years even if she had to hide it in the locket another man had given her. . . .
No, no, this was wrong. It had to be wrong.
She hated him. She couldn't bear to look at him. Belle had run out into the storm, risking her life, rather than confront him about the deal she thought—she must have thought—he was making with Gisborne.
He should have let her stay, should have let her watch as he taught the sheriff a much needed lesson. But, Belle had been upset just at Bae's prayer for revenge last night. And Rumplestiltskin had been angry with her today. He had driven her out rather than let her see him defending her honor.
Her honor, the snide, familiar voice echoed in his head. But, it was only a habit. There was no bite in it, not now.
Too many horrible things were coming together in his mind, things he should have seen before, things he would have seen if he had just let himself.
The sheriff had asked for her as his price; and Rumplestiltskin hadn't turned him down, not where she could hear him.
She had been flogged, a seaman's punishment. And she hadn't even been able to look at him when he wore the form of the seaman he'd thought was her lover.
"Bae," he said, keeping his voice steady. Sounding calm, that was important. Bae was upset enough as it was. "Your mama has scars on her back. Do you know how she got those?"
Bae nodded. "The captain. He was mean." Mean. Bae had prayed to his father for the captain's ship to sink. Rumplestiltskin had been amused, knowing the petition was already answered, thinking it just a child's whim.
"You . . . saw him do this." Despite his best efforts, there was tremor in Rumplestiltskin's voice.
Bae shook his head. "I don't think so. I don't remember seeing it. Mr. Smee made me stay in the cabin when bad things happened."
Smee. He'd been the ship's purser, the one Ursula had helped him find after the man had left Jones' service and was living on land. Rumplestiltskin had despised him for how quickly he gave up the information on his old captain, but he'd paid him for it all the same and left the man alive and well. If he'd known Smee had spared Bae the sight of his mother being flogged, he'd have given the frightened sailor a kingdom if he'd asked for it.
"If he did this, why did your mama stay with the captain?" A stupid question. Why did any woman stay with a man who beat her? As the Dark One, Rumplestiltskin had seen the ways fear, hopelessness, and something that called those feelings love could twist decisions. For that matter, why had Rumplestiltskin himself stayed in a village where people spat at the sight of him until it was almost too late to try and save Morraine?
"Mama had to stay," Bae said. "The captain bought her."
"He—what?"
"He bought her. Mama was a—a—" Bae's face screwed up with concentration as he tried to get the hard word right. "An in-den -tured servant," Bae said it very carefully, obviously proud of himself for getting it all out.
"Indentured. . . ." Bae might as well have turned into an Ogre and hit him on the head with his club for all the sense his words made.
Except they did. The scars, the layers of them, things Jones himself had said. Rumplestiltskin tried to narrow his thoughts to those, putting away three centuries of things he thought he knew but didn't. Scars, wounds, those were real, solid. They didn't change shape no matter how the world itself was shifting beneath his feet.
The oldest scars were from a whipping—a whipping, only one. Whipping was a landsman's punishment, an old favorite in the Frontlands. Rumplestiltskin has scars of his own, a parting gift before the army had sent him on his way.
Someone being punished for wrongdoing could be whipped along with facing fines. If the fines couldn't be paid, the wrongdoer could be sold off instead. If a crippled servant weren't useless, Rumplestiltskin's judges might have done that to him as well. He'd been glad the small holding he and Belle had was too far away for the officers deciding his fate to care about or go through the trouble of seizing.
Their holding. Belle could have sold off the holding to pay the fines and save herself. Or . . . no. It would be easy enough to tie up a widow's property, especially if she had a young son. The child would be the heir under the law, not her. A village leader could stop a guardian widow from disposing of her son's property if it wasn't in the child's interest. Or if he claimed it wasn't.
Even if it meant the child went with his mother into slavery.
"How did your mother—why was your mother indentured?"
"Hordor was angry," Bae said, as if Rumplestiltskin should understand everything from that, who Hordor was, why he would be angry, why he would take that anger out on Belle.
And Rumplestiltskin did, he understood every word of it.
Except he didn't.
Bae must have seen Rumplestiltskin's confusion. "It was after Papa and all the other men died," he added helpfully.
Died.
After Papa died.
"Your father . . . died?" Died. What other word could Bae mean? How could he think. . . ? "How? How did he die?"
"Ogres," Bae said. He looked surprised Rumplestiltskin wouldn't know this. "In the war. They killed everyone. Mama said it took a year for the news to get to the village. Hordor told everyone."
A year. A widow a year, Rumplestiltskin thought. And Belle had done something to make Hordor angry. A woman who was a widow a year could remarry. Rumplestiltskin remembered the look Hordor had given Morraine, the way he'd fingered her honey-dark hair as he'd said she'd ride with him. Rumplestiltskin could imagine what he'd asked of Belle, and what she'd done to bring out his fury.
But—No, Hordor had known Rumplestiltskin was alive. He had been waiting to tell Rumplestiltskin how Belle had left, how she had abandoned him. . . .
For the first time, Rumplestiltskin saw the oddness of that. The village headman rushing out of his hall, running down the road to tell a crippled nobody—less than nobody, a disgraced coward—his wife had left him.
Rumplestiltskin remembered the neighbors who never met his eyes when Hordor or one of his men mentioned Belle, even the ones who thought nothing of spitting on him in the street or giving him a beating when they were bored turned away in shame when Belle's name was spoken.
He looked back on things he'd never questioned, looking at pieces through his centuries of experience as trickster and dealmaker, questioning what he had always believed.
The pieces didn't fit. The villagers felt shame when they heard Belle's name, but it wasn't the shame of a small village where scandals could be remembered and held against a family for generations. They were never ashamed of her.
They were ashamed of themselves.
When they called him coward, when they spat on him and struck him, they were trying to bury the memory of their own cowardice, to convince themselves his was even worse—that he was the one who deserved to be despised, not them.
Because they'd stood by while Hordor beat an innocent woman and sold her to a passing pirate. Because they'd kept silent for fear of Hordor rather than tell Rumplestiltskin the truth.
But, Jones. The stories he'd told Rumplestiltskin. He'd said Belle had enjoyed—that she'd chosen—that she'd begged for everything he'd done to her.
The scars on her back. A seaman's punishment.
Slowly, Rumplestiltskin lifted a hand and placed it on the fleece above Belle's stomach. It was a simple spell. So easy, a child could do it (he must never, never teach Bae this spell, not if it showed him what he expected).
All magic comes with a price. If he was right, if this gave him the answer he expected. . . . He couldn't imagine any price worse than knowing the truth.
"What are you doing?" Bae asked.
"Looking for other injuries," Rumplestiltskin told him truthfully. "Ones I may have missed."
Lines of light traced out over the fleece across Belle's body. Different colors, different patterns meant different wounds. Some he known about already. Belle had told him about breaking her arm at age seven, and there was the scar on her knee from a tumble out of an apple tree a year later. Some he had expected. There were marks that showed on a woman who'd born a child (Bae's birth, he saw, had been harder than he would have wished for her but not nearly as bad as he had feared in the days when he'd dreamt of coming home and finding Belle dead in childbirth).
There were other scars, healed now—mostly healed—in about the same parts of her body, below her waist, before and behind. Rumplestiltskin ignored the roiling in his stomach as he read the broad outlines of the history written there.
Jones had believed what he'd said, that Belle had enjoyed this. Rumplestiltskin had seen the look in his eyes as he'd gloated. He'd done these abominations to her and said she enjoyed it. He'd let other men do the same to her—in every port, so he'd said—so he'd boasted.
Rumplestiltskin thought back on the long, painful death Ursula had given Jones. It hadn't been long enough.
I took his shape, Rumplestiltskin realized. Standing in an inn. By a bed. I took his shape and tried to take her in my arms. He'd seen her eyes. The fear. The revulsion.
If she had struck him with a knife, it would have been less than he deserved.
And, the next day, he had stood by while another man bargained to force her into his bed. He'd sent her away rather than let her interrupt their negotiations.
She had run out into the snow. The only question was if she'd done it in a panic, to get away from him, or if she'd been hoping to die out there?
"Baelfire," Rumplestiltskin said. "Tell me. Did your mother ever tell you anything about Jones? Did she—" Did she say he tortured her, raped her for the fun of it. Did she say he enjoyed selling her to men as depraved as he was? "—did she tell you what she thought of him?"
"He was mean," Bae said. "He made Mama cry a lot."
Rumplestiltskin closed his eyes. Jones had suffered, he reminded himself. He'd been surprised the man lived as long as he did.
Rumplestiltskin remembered what he himself had gone through since smashing his leg with the mallet, the months when he hadn't known if he would live or die, the darkness when he'd stood in his empty house and found out what living really cost.
You did not pay nearly enough.
He didn't know if he was talking to Jones or to himself.Top of Form