XII: Consummation
"A plague o' both your houses!" - Mercutio, Act III Sc I, Romeo and Juliet.
It was still dripping with rain. It slithered down the well-trodden dirt track, arching, swerving and curling through the valley. The ravaged fields wilted. Abandoned cottages, doors boarded firmly nailed shut – they crumbled under the rain. Through the choking mists of drizzle, walked no one. They had left their decrepit hovels, clutching their cloaks, head down, days ago. The downpours were an excuse to get out before the soldiers got in, after all.
The thought of soldiers storming the, admittedly, rather unkempt bundle of quaint and quirky villages along the east edge of Leona was once thought inconsiderable. Not anymore, it seemed.
Jude was walking alone. He had brought Zar'roc, again, under another weathered and weary disguise. He found his wrinkling hands – calloused, worn, withering hands which in too many ways were more like Murtagh's than his own – clutching to the sword more often. Hard times, he would mutter, decidedly, to anyone who dared ask, if his cold glare was not enough to dissuade them. Hard as cool, blood-stained steel. Maybe they were right to fear soldiers, he thought with a scowl. But Jude was not here to work – no, this was personal.
It had been four weeks since he had last seen Haeye. Frisky June, sweet-strawberry-pink, had given way to a morose July. The sweltering heat and heaps of peat and hollering calls and racing cats and dogs – gone. The triumphant thirteen clanging bells of this cluttered, clumsy town were just a chaotic echo, swept away by the storm. The streets were empty, clogged with backwash and grimy floodwater. The doors of crooked houses were nailed tightly shut. Only the rain remained.
Haeye had always been a dying town. The quaint shuttered windows and gentle windchimes hung outside each vast porch of the main street, singing in the wind, tinkling, precariously... they were lingering echoes of another era, of another time, that grew fainter and fainter with each wind's whisper, with each passing sun. The scrabble of a town had once belonged to the gentry, of which only murky tombstones and long, bleak funerals in the Northern moors remained. It had once been a most fashionable holiday – holiday, what a word! – destination prior to the Fall, filled with the fragrant airs and graces of silken women and velvet men. Music lived there, and laughed there, once. Dances, balls, masquerades; they all fleeted in and out under the watchful eye of the ancient D'Haeye family. The town was, after all, only ten miles away from Old Leona – the most wonderful city in the world, they did say, where the magnificent Masques, esteemed in rumour and in riches, would flaunt a majestic display, of wondrous poetry, mystic power, and music – something mere words could not, and dared not, describe, the stuff which dreams were made of...
Until Leona burnt down.
And with a flutter of leaves in the fall, blood spilt over the plump carpets, over the ragged floors, like wine – Châteaux D'Haeye 1439 – and the Riders' Autumn finally came. D'Haeye became Haeye, and Haeye disintegrated into crumbling old books and peasant mudshacks stinking of old leather boots.
And now there was nothing left.
And all Murtagh could do is dream of what he had lost. And work, of course. He always worked, even when he was holidaying in a vast dream.
The interlude ended when he came back.
"Murtagh–"
The Rider walked passed her. He was still wearing his rich, scented travelling furs, clad in leather and steel, with triumphant vermillion and gold trimmings. His hair was soaked, blackened by rainfall; his face was pale and shining. The vacant, glazed honeyed-brown gaze stared only forwards. It did not look at Arya. A naked tongue protruded from the leathery lip of his belt – his sword – his father's sword – the sword he wore only grudgingly.
It stank of blood.
"Murtagh–"
He walked into his study. He did not give a single glance back. Not a notice, not a nod of the head, not a single murmur or mutter or signal or sign. He did not explain why he had returned a week early. He did not explain why now, late in the evening, the stars ever twinkling again...
Arya did not understand.
Or she pretended not to.
A fierce knock at the door.
A small, withered silhouette of a woman, wrapped in a flimsy shawl, stirred. She was sat on the spindly stool, underneath a vast loom of grey and black thread, in the shadowy, stinking hut that was, and had always been, her home.
A second fierce knock at the door.
No children's cries or corpses lingered in the hut. No plagued bodies rotted in the depths. No, it was only the sad, old stink of a lone woman. She continued with her work, weaving. Clothes. Grey and black. Peasants always wore grey and black and brown. No one wore any colour but red. It was the only practical colour.
The door swung open. Suddenly. The woman stood up from her stool, wincing, in the shards of the cloudy light.
"Your name is Gwyneth. Yes?"
The words were sharp and staccato. They sliced the air. They were the words of a soldier.
"'Tis, sir."
She was shaking. Her crooked, hunched body was shaking. The whites of her eyes shimmered and shone, streaked in blood. But she stood still.
"You have been the neighbour of Rufus Cohen for..."
The man gesticulated sharply towards her.
"Since 'e came to Haeye, sir. I've lived here all my life, like my mother did, and my grandmother did – and I'll live here 'till my death, too, mister sir."
The man walked into the piercing light. His features she recognised – she had seen the foreign, alien profile before whilst spending a spare penny on charms at the market. Sharp nose. Soft mouth. Calloused, middle-aged hands. A wild, curly mane of thick, greying hair. The stern, upright hold of a soldier – it unnerved her. And luminous honey-brown eyes, eyes which were misplaced, eyes which did not belong, eyes which never flinched or flickered away.
"He's gone," said Jude, glaring.
"I didn't know that," she snapped, wearily. "Last time I talked to the rotten bastard was god knows – only god ever knows 'ow long ago. He prob'ly left town with the rest of 'em, the bloody coward. Doubt he'll come back. No one ever liked 'im, enyway – he was pompous, yeh see."
The man had crossed his arms now, still glaring, still waiting for her to finish. Gwyneth wondered if he really had listened to a word she'd said –
"How long ago was this?"
"A couple o' weeks or so. Not long."
"Why did they leave town?"
Her fingers, spiderlike, crawling fingers were shaking – shaking.
"You shoulden't ask questions, mister. It's bad –"
"I'll ask what I want." He grew closer. "And you'll answer."
There was a terrifying certainty, a terrifying authority to his words. The midday bells of the distance chapel tolled as he spoke again, thumping out one by one.
Dong.
The ringing of the twelfth bell of the church tower turned into a death rite.
Dong.
Each Wedn'sday, their names would be read.
Dong.
We knew all of the people.
Dong.
We knew their cheery laughs, their bitter smiles, and now their tears.
Dong.
We could see the bodies hidden by cloth outside the village hall, lined one, by one, by one.
Dong.
No one tried to hide their tears anymore; No one tried to hide their thin and rattling sobs, brittle as their starving bones.
Dong.
Barragh cried as the winter rains swept in that year.
Dong.
Dong.
... As Irose to greet her, this strange creature, this faerie, gaunt-faced, broken-eyed faerie, I could not help myself. I cried. I cradled her, cradled her disgusting, putrid form...she stank of crushed rose petals, rotting and withered...
Dong.
Dong.
They were blue roses. Impossible in nature, impossible in science – but in a world governed by magic, by mayhem, by desperate nightmares and dreams... they could bloom...
Dong.
Dong.
"A plague sir. A plague has befallen our houses," she said, his wispy voice creaking, her head shaking, shaking, no, no no – "It killed 'alf the women, and all the children – all of 'em – it killed Martyn, and Ivor, and Wynne – that's where they are. They're at a funeral now. They're burying Ceri at the lake...
The man did not say anything.
"The plague turned her body black, black and red and blistering, and she was screaming, screaming, the whole of Haeye could 'ear her wail like a babe... and it spread. There's a black star on every door now, painted there, a warning sir, a warning for all 'cept the mad – oh god sir, our Wombat ran, like the rest, they w-were afraid. And you sir! Do you know what they say about you? Do yeh? D-do yeh!"
She stammered. Her face was streaked in tears.
"They say you brought it here. They say you brought it upon us, you terrible stranger. I bet all you want is the key to 'is 'ouse, so yeh can plunder 'is books! I'm not lettin' yeh – no. I never will. This all started with you, yeh know. It's that bloody – that sword."
She pointed at it, stabbing the air, repeatedly - derangedly. Because a lone woman was a mad one.
"The day you left, the day yeh last left, with that sword – we remember these things, y'know – this!" she threw up her hands at the sky, the blustery storm clouds, black and remorseless. Except she couldn't see the sky. There was a roof in the way. "This, is your fault. You brought this misery to us. You brought all this death and destruction, you brought it all."
He twitched at the word misery. But he was still silent.
"No one else comes here but you, just you – I don't know of anything else that could'eve done it – it must have been you, we don't have any of yer poncy city richmen's 'medicine' to protect us – only god, and what a bastard, what a bastard he is! It must have been you. You killed us all – "
She gulped. And stammered.
"You killed us – "
"I didn't."
A grin. A twisted, mockery of a grin. A grin that looked like it wanted to cry, to weep, to rip the world to coloured shreds and then consume itself in its madness, a hungering, ravenous madness. It was a face that Jude would have never had pulled – never.
The face of a monster. The face of a devil.
"You killed – "
The man walked towards her. He unsheathed his sword.
"You – "
And the world, the black and grey world, draped in poor man's rags, became enveloped in dangerous red – the only colour nobles ever wore these days.
Arya screamed.
"M-Murtagh!"
He wasn't listening to her. He wasn't listening to her. He wasn't listening to her.
"Murtagh! Murtagh!"
Could he not see her at all? Was she simply invisible again? Was she but a mirage to him?
"Murtagh Murtagh Murtagh Murtagh Murtagh!"
She was shrieking his name now.
This is for the best. You should have never been with him in the first place.
Arya was shaking.
He is on the wrong side. If you care not for the Varden, then so be it – but you are still an elf. You cannot change that, no matter how much you disguise yourself.
"I don't care," she mumbled.
You would have left him eventually. Your... your... feelings – she winced – are perverse and obscene and would have thrown you far astray. This was not meant to be – she winced again – and you know that.
"I don't care," she repeated.
He is on the losing side.
"I don't care! I don't – I can't –" she trailed off, slowly, sinking to her knees. He could not hear an utterance, a single syllable, of what she was saying… oh, how monstrous it was. How was it that apathy could be crueller than cruelty itself? She hated it. She hated it – she hated being ignored. She hated being left out in the cold, cold world, alone – no other – wandering, a wistful ghost, the echoes of rotting skeletons still lingering, soft and fresh words, cupped in her ears… She viciously pinched herself.
"I'm meant to betray, I'm made to betray – I'm callous, I'm cruel, I'm so, so, so..."
Human.
That was the worst part.
She loathed humans. Just as she loathed elves. Just as she loathed everything. Nothing, absolutely nothing had been worth the slightest amount of love, tenderness, or heart-warming, forgiving, beaming smiles since Gil'ead. Nothing. Especially herself.
Murtagh was no exception to this rule. Pity him, spare some stray affection to the most loathsome man, she did. But not love. She did not love him. She could not, would not, should not love him. Arya could not, would not, should not love.
... Yet – she said, yet. Yet each time he smiled, each time he mumbled and muttered a stray remark, each time his fingers gently traced the ghost of her hand... each whisper of his, each story, of autumn days, that touched and graced her ears, she felt her stomach clench and tremble, her fingers shiver and shake, drowning in quivering ecstasy, overflowing with guilt. Guilt and hatred.
It was wonderful.
She did not love him. Yet it did not stop her wanting him. And now he would very possibly never see her again.
Murtagh.
She screamed his name, she howled it, for the third time, she belted it out and let it roar and screamed. Like an animal.
Murtagh.
She was screaming as if she were about to die.
Gwyneth was dead.
Something had killed her. Not Murtagh – not Zar'roc – not even Jude. Because Jude – he had never killed before, never killed anybody, never hurt anyone, Jude was ordinary, he was average, he was just another traveller, and he was not a monster.
But it was his body that killed her.
Had Jude killed her?
Had he?
There was no one else there but – oh god, oh god, he had killed her, hadn't he? He must have, he must have, there was no one else –
He. Had. Killed. Her.
He had screamed and stabbed her and there was blood, blood, red, hot, horrible blood staining things and her body was limp and she had screamed and he spilt things and books were everywhere – books, beautiful books and they were red, and things were on fire and oh god oh god oh god he was so angry he had to kill her he had to he had to he had –
I'm a monster.
Murtagh muttered a few words. The disguise was gone, the mask unveiled. He could never be Jude again. He would kill himself. Jude had never killed before and would have killed himself in the process, screaming and crying and choking on his own sword.
But Murtagh was a soldier. He had killed. He couldn't remember how many times. Too many times. All he did was shake his head with disgust.
He lugged the body over his shoulder and left. He would dump it in the lake later.
He heard the scream.
He turned around. Broken from a trance, his head swung back, his eyes wide and worried – excited – feverish, almost, anxious –
"Malena?"
He ran to her – stumbling – awkwardly, pulling her into a sudden embrace, clinging to her fiercely, desperately, with fumbling hands, brushing her skin, running through her hair.
"What is wrong?"
It was her who asked the question.
"Nothing," he murmured, his lips brushing the rims of her ear. They were wet. "Nothing at all."
He pulled away for a moment, staring directly into her gaze. His eyes, a deep and dark brown, twinkled beneath a pair of thick, black eyebrows. Madly. Brutally. It was strange to think those wide and wild eyes were the exactly same shape and shade as his younger brother's, yet so overwhelming, so rich and ravishing and raw.
Did she just describe Murtagh as ravishing?
"Your… hair is longer," she said. It was a blunt statement. A correct one, too. His hair had shot down by at least four inches, now traipsing along his shoulder-line.
"Magic," he chuckled. He tapped the side of his nose, and patted where his crystal was hidden beneath his clothing.
"It looks terrible." This statement was correct also.
He winced for a brief moment, looking as he wanted to cry – before he suddenly burst into streams of laughter. As if she had said the quaintest, dearest, most adorable thing in the world – before cutting short, gripping her head by his fingertips, and launching into frenzied, devouring kissing.
He did not let go for minutes.
"S-sorry," he stammered breathlessly. "I – sorry, I needed, I – "
She grabbed him then, and repeated the deed. He was still laughing and smiling and grinning – wickedly – as they devoured each other. So was she.
They were thinking of exactly the same thing.
And it did not matter what had come before, and it did not matter what would come after. It was the present now, and in the present they were ripping off each others' clothes and throwing them across the reception room, with hungry, gnawing hands and delighted smiles, wicked smiles, between the harsh kisses and the cackles of insane, crazed laughter, weak laughter, sobbing laughter – oh, it was wonderful.
Their room, their world, transformed with every clawing grasp, as the austere furniture pieces were sliced into pieces and sprawled upwards, into twisting, turning, bristling trees, hooked with leaves, hanging beneath a bewildered night, cold, naked, moonless. It did not matter if it were just a dream – just a story, for children – for they could feel and touch and smell nothing but each others' flesh.
They had sex on the forest floor. Raw and wild and ravenous sex. Mad sex. Dirty, dirty, dirty sex. Twice.
And this time, they couldn't deny it, they couldn't forget it, and they couldn't wish it away. Or maybe they could – but neither of them wanted to.
Once they had finished, they curled backwards onto a bed of freshly-fallen leaves, crisp tatters of dreams scattered across the hardwood floor. They lay completely naked. They had absolutely no intention of putting their clothes on.
Between the sporadic gaps of silence, they mumbled gently to each other, softly, slowly. About their lives, mainly. Murtagh learnt that Arya's favourite colour was red. He loathed the colour. He preferred a deep, murky green, the colour of many esteemed childhood storybooks. She, too, loathed the colour – it reminded Arya of pretentious elfin-gothic architecture. All frills, no substance to – that was something they both agreed on. Murtagh chuckled – he too could barely understand the romanticism attached to forlorn, derelict Rossetti-era gothic manors in the wild moorlands north of Narda. Nostalgia, for him, had always been a curse, not weakness – why were things always better in the good old days, in the times gone by? Arya nodded vividly – she agreed. She had never agreed so much in her lifetime – and she relented about how it ruined her sixty years of childhood. Sixty years? – he asked, astounded. She, then, was merely more than a child. Just as he was. She then weakly chuckled, and absently noted he did not remotely sound like a northerner, for someone who had spent half their childhood there. He snorted, retorting that she did not sound remotely humanat all...
But they mostly lay in silence, their fingertips gently drifting against each other, lost in whirlwinds of their own thoughts, their own worlds, with just a brief moment of contact, tender touch, just a brief moment...
It was enough to let Murtagh forget how many people he had murdered this week.
Don't ask me how many, Thorn. Not that the dragon needed to ask – Murtagh asked the questions. Thorn just meekly grumbled at the back of his mind – no more. For all the nuisance Murtagh had expected, the dragon dared not even linger, even probe, even touch Murtagh's storming mind during his erratic fornications. He never spoke. He only witnessed in silence. He didn't even watch.
You know better than to ask me that anyway. Because the answer was obvious – how many people had Murtagh killed? Even an imbecile could answer it.
The answer is always too many.
A/N: A rehashed chapter 25. I hated the original Gwyneth section of the first chapter 25 to the point I had to change it, as opposed to writing a new chapter. It's much more coherent now. And much more emotional. And Gwnyeth combines fiesty and vulnerable better - I find fiesty characters hard to pull off, since everyone makes them clichéd and they're such big clichés in themselves, but I think I've given her some nice bite without ruining her. Murtagh's action here is... I feel a little bit more well explained. It's still ambiguous, but I sorta intended it to be like that. Murtagh can be irrational, occaisionally, although he likes to pretend he's infallible to that sort of incompetence.
I forgot to ask last time, but did you notice parts of one of the Murtagh Pirate Lord's exceprts in the midst of that? Because they were there :P