Twenty Nine
Time seemed to pass slowly as Sin healed, though her eye would not be as it once was and she would have difficulty seeing all her days. She had not the courage to venture outside Joy's sanctuary and she was conscious of the eyes of her kin watching her curiously from the gaps in the walls.
In the night her dreams were dark and comfortless, filled with the phantoms of the Hounds and their vile ministrations. By day she gained more strength, at first only able to sit up she soon found her feet but moved sluggishly about the place.
Joy moved efficiently, despite her awkward gait, there was still some of the graceful movement of the House in her. Sin was silent through most of the recovery and Joy did not press her but seemed grateful for the company after long years of solitude.
Sin felt loss in every fibre of her being and though she loathed to succumb to sleep because she feared it would rouse further memories she could not resist.
"Did you ever regret…being separated from your child?" She asked softly.
"I do not dwell on it." Came Joy's curt reply.
But Sin had no choice for her thoughts had shifted in the hours of darkness from the pain and humiliation and tit was to thoughts of the child she had born. For months she had existed with the babe's company walled inside her own flesh and whilst at time she had wondered if it were none other than a demon, it had been hers and for that she loved it at least a little and more she missed it.
"To die would have been a kinder fate." Joy murmured later as if they had never stopped speaking. "But it would not have pleased him."
"And you still think of that?" Sin asked a tinge of bitterness in her voice. "Pleasing your Maegester."
"Is that not why we are rendered thus?" Joy asked and shrugged.
Sin looked through her one good eye at her body, still bloated with the birth but bereft of life. "What if we were made for more than this?"
"You are young still." Joy said and clucked her tongue.
Sin didn't feel young, she thought upon it a she closed her eyes to sleep. Time shifted fitfully for each night was plagued by memories enhanced by the darkness and the claustrophobic confines of Joy's abode. A strange odour filled her senses, something sour and then thick and clogged up her nostrils until she began to cough. It was smoke.
She struggled to sit up, feeling weak and tender from her disorienting dream. What she could see was blurred by darkness and the smoke and then the startling bright orange of flames filled her poor vision.
She roused her limbs. "Joy." She cried but she couldn't hear nor sense the woman. "Joy?" She sputtered as she cried out.
She moved on hands and knees trying to feel for the old woman in the dark, but careful to avoid the heat and devouring flame. There, she felt the withered hand and pulled on it, hearing the sickening pop of a bone, with all her might and despite the pain she pulled Joy clear of the hut that was now completely alight. The structure collapsed into the sands of the Hold.
She collapsed beside Joy's inert body, still choking, she buried her face in the dirt to remove the heat of the fire from her skin.
She could not count the passage of time; figures emerged from the darkness bright eyed and baring their white teeth. In their hands they held crude weapons of wood and some implements of glinting steel, pointed at the two women prone in the dirt.
"Do it now." Someone urged.
"Run them through."
Sin opened her mouth thinking to utter a scream but the gates of the hold burst open and a growl thundered through the din. The Hound's paws were like thunder approaching Sin from behind, she now had her arms wrapped around Joy protecting her from those that she had once known as brothers and sisters.
"Come." The Hound now half beast and man growled. She knew it was Voris. He looked terrifying: his sharp teeth as keen as blades and large muscles and sinew gleaming from the fire's glow. He took Sin's hand, his was rough almost leathery with coarse hairs and sharp claws. "If you touch either of these women again I will come in the night and tear you from your sleep."
Murmurs were heard and screams and the dull thud of a woman fainting and children crying. They were scared.
"Know that they come with the protection of Dis and I will avenge them should you lead them to harm."
Sin was thoroughly grateful but she could not overcome her terror and her lack of vision exacerbated the panic swelling in her chest. Voris pulled her to her feet and then hoisted Joy into his arms and took them a safe distant from the flaming hut.
Her kin departed back to their own bunks but their eyes were ever watching, cautious to observe everything unfold.
Voris lay Joy down gently on the earth before the gates. Sin knelt beside the woman's body, with trembling hands she stroked wisps of hair back from the wrinkled face and tears wet her cheeks as Joy's flesh remained icy beneath her touch. Sin grasped one of the woman's hands and squeezed tight.
"She's dead." Voris murmured in her ear trying to ease the grip Sin had on the woman.
"No." Sin said her voice weak with grief.
"Let her go." He said and pulled her against his chest, she pressed her face into the fabric of his shirt.
"She was all I had left." Sin whispered.
Voris allowed her to cry until she could not and she stood and walked stiffly to the cooking pit. "Help me." She said as she tugged on a plank of wood. He moved quickly to help her and together they built a pyre around Joy's body.
He handed her the torch from the entryway and with a slight tremble in her arm and a prayer on her lips she set the pyre alight and through her narrowed vision saw the flames consume the wood and then hungrily devour Joy's withered body.
Mesmerised by the flames she thought she saw Irkalla dancing in the light, her hip posed seductively , her head turned to one side, smiling and with a curled finger beckoned Sin to the fire. Voris lay a hand on her upper arm drawing her away from the heat and the smoke.
She took hold of the chain about her throat and squeezed it tight in one hand, hard enough for the stones to bite and drawn blood from the flesh of her palm. She tore it roughly from her neck and chucked it into the fire, hoping the flames would destroy it.
She turned to the Hound, laying her head on Voris' chest; he stiffened but then relaxed arms drawing her in to a comforting hold. "What price is freedom?" She asked her voice muffled against his chest.
"Come." Voris said against her hair. "This will draw the Maegester's attention and I think it best no one find you here."
"What devilry is this?" Lucerne mused aloud at the sudden bright spark of light in the lower part of the island. Even through the trees he could see the light, a fire, he expected. A large one.
Domitian came to stand beside him. "A feast is it?"
Lucerne shook his head from side to side, he had commissioned no feast. The slaves had merely been given a reprieve form the rigorous attention of the Lords and Ladies of Elysion and their Hounds whilst they all celebrated the birth of the child.
"What say you we make a journey south?" Domitian said with a perverse smile. "If we find nothing amiss at least we might have a taste of something new."
Lucerne allowed Domitian to arrange the horses and soon they were taking the steep path toward the southern ridge, their mounts proceeding one at a time and it took about an hour at pace but Lucerne curiosity was provoked by the scent of the smoke and then, as they grew nearer, the unmistakable smell of burning flesh.
He glanced behind his shoulder at Domitian who had sensed the same and his dark brows rose.
The heat and scent had led them to the gates of Meridianus and her gates were sealed with thick steel chains. Lucerne dismounted first and handed his reins for Domitian to tether the horses. "Perhaps we should summon a Hound." Domitian murmured uneasily.
Lucerne unbound the gates and a gust of hot air assaulted his face. The stench of burning flesh was enough to make him choke. Domitian raised a handkerchief to his mouth and followed at Lucerne's shoulder. Through the barrelling reams of smoke they could distinguish a crude funeral pyre.
Lucerne could make out the shapes of the slaves in the outer darkness, peering from a distance at the flames and the Maegesters who appeared like phantoms.
"Whose flesh do you burn?" He demanded of them.
The Meridianus folk flocked together, a mass of trembling flesh and whilst he would usually delight in such things it only served to irritate him now. He wanted answers. "You." He pointed to a woman of middling years. "What is the meaning of this?"
"She was old, Maegester." The woman's voice quavered rendering her words almost indecipherable. "Her dwelling caught aflame."
His eyes moved from the pyre to the remains of the dwellings the slave indicated with a trembling hand. It was pushed far back in the cluster of stick huts. The cooking pit was to the far left, one could not meet the other and the slaves were not permitted candles to light the darkness. "How?"
The woman sputtered. The stench of a lie was already crawling over her as pungent as the nervous sweat that dripped between her shoulder blades. He gritted his teeth when she did not respond.
He motioned to Domitian who threw dirt on the pyre to kill the flame. All the while Lucerne watched the dark haired slaves, slivers of memory whispered across his mind, Sin and her long dark hair, her dark eyes, her wilful mouth…
When smoke hissed from the blackened wood, he pushed Domitian aside and walked into the ash, he disturbed the pile with his boot, overturning charred wood and dirt. There, something sparkled against the light of a torch. He crouched and ran his hand through the grey and smoulder and retrieved the bright spill of white gold and sapphires. A necklace.
He stood quickly. He expanded his senses trying to seek out something familiar but there was nothing but the gaggle of Meridianus slaves, a mindless babble of fear. He lifted eyes, now solid spheres of silver, toward the herd of slaves. He held up his findings to them, it glinted in the semi light. "To whom does this belong?"
The slaves cast their eyes to the ground.
"Do you wish to punish them?" Domitian murmured in his ear.
Lucerne shook his head, no but his eyes remained searching. "Let us return to the house." He said softly.
Lucerne sat alone in his room in the dark, in one hand he held the sapphire encrusted necklace, they split from between his fingers, cool upon his cold skin. Absorbed in thoughts of the slave, Sin. Her name had been Sin. He remembered how her large brown eyes would gleam, a paradox of distress and defiance.
His grip on the necklace tightened, biting into his skin. He remembered how he had placed the jewels around her neck, how lovely she had looked, how easily she had succumbed to him. Her blood had long since faded from his pallet but he could remember it. The taste of rebellion.
He stood and moved slowly toward the pedestail where a box was placed. Carved from oakwood and engraved with the tiger lily, this was Sin's box.
It had begun with his great-grandfather who had chosen a slave companion and favoured her with priceless adornments. It started for his own amusement for slaves were not buried, it had become tradition to commemorate their lives with a box wherein all the splendour that had been bestowed on the chattel in live was contained.
He opened the box it, the hinges were stiff from lack of use. A blood stained ribbon was carefully laid inside. The blood stain had become brown and brittle with age. He picked it up with reverent fingertips and sniffed it. He shuddered at the lingering scent of her, phantoms of pleasure, her flesh, her blood, her bright eyes came to him.
He kept the ribbon in his hand, clasping it like a talisman and lay the sapphire necklace in the box and closed it.
He left his room and walked aimlessly at first and then he started toward the nursery where his son lay sleeping in his crib.
The child was pearlescent in the semi-light, the pale white dusting of hair. He knew his son's eyes were beautiful large and brown. Such curious eyes.
He lifted the boy from the crib, gently so as not to wake him, he made a small, pleasant noise that kindled warmth in Lucerne's heart. The boy found a comfortable spot on his chest and went back to sleep. Lucerne gently sniffed the top of the baby's head.
The ribbon fell from his fingertips and fluttered delicately to the floor.
The scent of the boy was like wind and ocean surf. It was the scent of wildness and aspirations. It was the same scent as the ribbon that lay on the floor.
Updated 26/01/2013
Miss S
