"So Close to Pleasure"
Letterewe – 1651
It was a particularly beautiful morning that found Penance seated at table for breakfast, vacantly contemplating the cheese wedge on his plate. It wasn't a very remarkable thing, truth be told.
But— truth be told— he was actually thinking of something else, too.
"Ah! Glorious day. Just glorious!" Uallas sidled into the kitchen, fashionably late as usual. He gazed out a window behind Penance and drew a deep, content breath, craning his head back in utter delight.
It was actually a little obnoxious.
"Today's certainly a red-letter day for the living! Speaking of which, there's sure to be a lively display of activity down in town on a beautiful day like this, bein' as we have so few because, you know, Scotland." He turned his head to the boy. "Say, Penance—"
The boy's body jerked involuntarily; he nearly knocked his plate right off the table.
"Penance," the man continued, "why don't you take Stru and go on down into Letterewe after breakfast?"
Struana, absently humming as she played with the rind of her cheese, quickly looked up at the man, her lips instantly beaming with a darling grin:
"For true? For real, Uallas?"
"Aye. You can make a day of it, if you like. There's enough to do in and around town, small though it may be." His smile widened. He reached across the table and tousled Struana's hair. "Of course you're likely to spend most of your time down at the miller's, watching Stru beg for some of those flour sweet cakes his wife makes."
"Uallas!" Stru pulled her head away from the man in an attempt at indignation, but a fit of tittering gave her away. She hopped up on her chair, bouncing about as if she had to relieve herself, and called across the table to Penance: "Come on, Penance! Let's go! Please, let's go!"
Penance only looked up at Uallas; the boy's face was uncertain.
Uallas slapped the boy's shoulder and nodded at him. Penance looked back at the girl and gave her the same small nod.
"Hooray!" Struana leapt up off her chair, and it went down on its side with a tremendous thud. This brought Cadha out from the kitchen, and she wagged a stern finger at her daughter:
"You'll be goin' nowhere fast, li'l one, if you're intent on breakin' all our worldly possessions. Nor will ya' be goin' without first collecting kindling for the hearth, will ye?"
Struana pouted, sulkily waving her arms back and forth.
"Well? Will ye, lass?"
The girl shook her head, eyes locked firmly on the floor.
"No, mama," she said.
Cadha motioned to the door:
"Then get to it, lassie!"
Struana shuffled outside. Cadha looked over at Penance, grim sneer turning into a warm smile:
"And Penance, my dear: do have fun down in town, will you?"
The boy smiled at her and nodded.
Suddenly the woman's grin fell back into that cold sneer and she pointed at him sternly, wagging her finger:
"And you will not come back to this home without my daughter in tow, ya' hear?"
The woman stormed back into the kitchen, leaving Penance with a lump in his throat. Uallas chuckled as he pulled a chair beside the boy.
"Ah, my!" Uallas said. "Now, that, my dear Penance, is a woman for you!"
Penance nibbled on the last of his cheese and rolled his eyes:
"She's two women, really." The boy looked over at the man. "I thought we were supposed to be training, today."
"Eh," Uallas shrugged. "A life cannot all be made of work, work, work, can it? Even an Immortal body needs a rest, ever so often. Believe me it's true. You've earned a bit of one, anyway."
Penance stared down at his plate.
"You know, lad, you've barely spoken a dozen complete sentences to me since, er..." the man scratched his chin. "Well, since you passed that last phase of your training. Now I can understand you might be...well, a bit put-off by the lesson—"
"That's not the right word," Penance glared at him. "And I'm just a little confused, 'cause you're trying to train me to be some kinda crazy psychopath, isn't that right?"
Uallas' carefree face turned more grim:
"That's not the right word, either, Penance. Truth be told, if your training is ever worth a damn people might start to think you're some kind of monster—"
"So why're you letting me go off with Struana, like that? Monsters and psychopaths just don't do that kinda thing."
"I'm training you to be a monster, Penance, and to be a psychopath. Just because you've been trained to be something, that doesn't make it what you are."
Penance furrowed his brow and bared his teeth:
"So, like, seriously: do you actually listen to yourself when you speak, or do you just say the first line of random crap that comes to mind?"
The man never lost his smile:
"If what I say is inelegant, lad, it certainly isn't untrue."
Penance got up from his chair. He crossed his arms and then gazed out the window. Struana fiddled about near the tree line far away from the house, poking about for twigs.
"What's bothering you, lad?" Uallas asked.
The boy ground one foot against the floor.
"After I 'passed' your little test, and when I was standing over your body..."
"You felt something then, did you?"
Penance nodded.
"What was it: guilt? Fear? Anger, even?"
The boy shook his head.
"No, it was..."
Penance drew a breath; it was halting and stuttering. His eyes filled with a certain emotion, and Uallas could read it quite clearly.
"Oh, it was 'something else', was it? Triumph, maybe? Or even—"
"Something else," Penance wagged his head. "Kinda... it was kinda like 'something else'."
Uallas nodded. He leaned back in his chair, arm extended over the chair beside him in a display of supreme leisure.
"It was pleasure, was it?"
Penance quickly looked at the man; he bit his lip, but said nothing.
"I know the feeling, boy. It was. And you think that your pleasure, in a situation like that, would be exactly the kind of thing—"
"That a monster would feel." The boy nodded, again looking out the window.
"It would seem to me, lad, that a 'monster' was exactly the kind of thing you needed to be to get out of the situation you were in. Ugly thing? Yes. Disgusting, too? Undoubtedly. It's a certain monstrousness that can only come from you, lad, and in a pinch it is the only thing that can keep you alive. No one else can be relied upon for it. It's a commodity, Penance: something exploited, and then wrapped up, safe and sound, ready for when the need arises again."
The boy leaned against the windowpane and drew another long breath; he appeared thoroughly unconvinced by this.
"Nobody would ever claim that our situation is an easy one." Uallas said. "We're all grand royalty without regalia: princes who would be kings, Penance. And in our case the 'palace intrigue' is of a decidedly deadly flavor. Doubly so for a little prince..."
"Am I supposed to want to be 'king', Uallas?"
The man perched his lips. He brushed back one of those long, scraggily ropes of gray hair behind one ear and shrugged:
"What you want, Penance, is what you want."
The boy's lips tightened into a sneer.
"Tautological, isn't it?" The man smiled.
Penance tried to keep his sneer, but it failed; a wan smile bled through.
"You must eventually decide for yourself whether you want to actively 'participate' in the Game or not. You've the makings of a great player, honestly, and perhaps you've just discovered you have the temperament, as well."
Uallas got up and joined Penance at the window. The pair looked out over the golden sunrise breaking out along the banks of Loch Maree far below them, where swirling twilight fog burned off over the water. Penance looked up at man with a troubled brow:
"How do you hide the monster, Uallas?" Penance whispered. "Until you need it again, I mean?"
The man smiled and ruffled the boy's hair:
"By enjoying the precious things that this world has to offer, lad. Now get the hell out of here, will you? The day awaits you."
X
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X
Struana got her sweet rolls from the miller before anything else, and as Uallas predicted the child pulled every trick she could from the 'adorable kid's playbook' to acquire them: wide eyes, batty lashes, a mewling little voice (even higher in pitch than her normal mousey voice). Penance half-expected that all the dogs in town would start barking in response.
She was hilarious in action here, and even though Penance knew for a fact that the girl had not one ounce of guile in her body otherwise, she was absolutely devious here.
Struana was so eager in her performance that the boy let her play her act to its fullest before revealing the large purse of coins Uallas had given him. It was crammed so full of bodles that Penance could have bought out the miller's daily supply of flour if he wanted. He really could've, too: Uallas hadn't even asked the boy for change when he gave him the purse.
"Rotten of you, hiding that from me," the girl sulked as they ate their sweet rolls in the grassy center of the small settlement.
"I was enjoying the show," Penance smirked. "You're so good at begging that I'm surprised you haven't gotten Uallas to buy you a pony, or something."
The girl's pout deepened:
"I've tried, and he says he can't."
"Codger can't afford one pony," Penance scoffed. "He's got more coin than God." Penance clucked his tongue even before he finished his words, rolling his eyes. "Blasphemy, nice," he whispered, drawing a quick hand under his shirt to briefly touch his mahogany rosary.
"I don't want a pony."
"What, then?"
"Unicorn."
Penance nearly choked on his bite of sweet roll. He regained composure, doing his best not to chuckle. Struana looked down at the large sack of bodles between them. When she looked back up at Penance her green eyes were massive, bubbly wells of hope, and that little gap in her teeth beamed with a lustrous smile:
"Penance, do you think you might have enough in there to maybe—"
"Oh, sure," Penance held back a laugh. "Why not? We'll just go down to the secret commonwealth and see the fairies; we can ask them how many unicorns they've got in stock for us. And while we're at it I've always wanted a pet Minotaur..."
Struana furrowed her tiny brow and let loose her trademark pout:
"That's awfully rotten of you, Penance," she said.
X
X
X
After their little snack Struana found a small troupe of children who were given similar holidays on account of the beautiful weather. The rabble played in a field on the edge of the settlement. Penance encountered a boy about his own age who was not so lucky, working a field of crops nearby. Penance joined the boy for a break and they split a small waterskin of mead. The stuff was watered-down, and it wasn't mixed with any hops, either, forcing the flavors of sugar and sweet honey to the front of the tongue. It wasn't exactly Penance's preferred type of brew, but he had to admit it would make for an excellent working-day thirst quencher, and the light buzz he got afterward wasn't exactly unpleasant, either.
By afternoon Struana was still a little bundle of excitable energy— Penance had no idea where that all came from, but of course the alcohol in his blood didn't help his energy level, much— so he let her run wild in a field of swaying heather very near the bank of the loch. He took the opportunity to doze under the shelter of a weathered tree.
He toyed with a bundle of bright red berries growing from a vine near the base of the tree; they were fruity little things, and they freely bled an appealing, succulent juice at the slightest touch. He picked a few and held them to his nose. The smell was certainly good enough: like muted strawberries with a faint hint of something else. Rotted earth, kind of, but in a good way, like black truffles. When he put his tongue to one of them and tentatively lapped up the clear juice he tasted a strange mix of spices and bitter nuts. It set his tongue to tingling a little, and when he flicked it back and forth in his mouth his whole face felt a little weird.
It was kinda neat, actually. In fact, something 'interesting' might just happen if he popped a few more of them...
After he'd had a few mouthfuls Struana raced up to him; when she saw him holding the red berries she gasped, hands to her slim face:
"Ah, Penance: don't!" She cried. "They're not for eating!"
"What are they?" He asked.
"They're poison, Penance! The farmers go to war at them in town; if they ever grow near chickens and the like they'll eat them and die. Children don't eat them, thankfully: it tastes awful, you see."
Penance stated down at the berries and grunted. 'Awful'? He didn't really think so. But, of course, he had somewhat eclectic tastes.
After Struana rested a bit she went right back at it, careening all through the hills like a squirrel. Penance decided to try his luck with the red berries, and so he downed a few more handfuls. He didn't feel any different, really, and that slight numbness on his tongue didn't get any worse, or better. He lay back and folded his hands over his chest, shrugging. Looks like the girl was exaggerating a bit.
"Tsk, tsk," Penance clucked his tongue, smirking. "No unicorn for you, naughty little girl."
After a few minutes, however, Penance was singing a different tune: he started to feel a strange tightness in his chest, and the folds of skin around his eyes began twitching erratically. A certain spasm started in his belly, and soon it traveled up into his lungs. His breaths came in quick, tight gasps, and sweat suddenly cascaded down his neck and forehead.
"Aw… damn it..." He snarled and rolled his eyes in annoyance, spitting up an involuntary white froth from his lips.
He couldn't even move his limbs toward the end; as his body locked up and his lungs stopped heaving Penance figured he owed Struana an apology. Then his heart stopped, and his eyes clouded over.
He awoke to small hands jostling his body; Struana was standing over him, impatiently manhandling him. She tittered playfully and pointed at the boy's cheek:
"You drooled yourself, Penance! Quite well, at that!"
Penance groaned as he rolled to one side; he wiped his cheek and looked at the milky froth.
"Happens to the best of us, Stru." He playfully flicked some of the foam in the girl's direction, and it landed on the fringes of her white dress.
"Aw! Gross!" She yelled.
"It's just a little spit—"
"It's gross, Penance!"
"Do you want to go home and change?"
The girl adamantly shook her head:
"No. I wanna go out on the loch. Can we borrow a boat, do you think?"
Penance wiped the froth off the rest of his face and nodded:
"Yeah, we can probably do that," he said.
Struana ran off along the bank of the water, giggling happily. Penance got to his feet and wagged his head, trying to steady himself. He was about to leave when he noticed another sprig of red berries at his feet.
"They don't really taste that awful," he muttered. "I could probably get to like 'em, actually..."
Given enough time, at least; they were definitely an acquired taste.
He pocketed the berries and followed the girl down to the shoreline.
X
X
X
The late afternoon weather was even better than morning. Golden rays of sunlight beamed over the waters of Loch Maree. The place was a far sight from that moody, cloudy, wind-battered waterway Penance encountered on his journey into Letterewe. Silvery water weaved around the many little islands sticking out the loch; white seabirds on a day trip from the Atlantic weaved about in the air while occasionally diving down into the water, fishing.
"This place looks a lot better than the last time I was here," he mused. Penance worked the oars on the little boat they scrounged up, while Struana lay splayed before him, hands playfully weaving in and over the water.
"We've all kinda of weather out here, you know, and all the time." The girl briefly looked up at the brilliant, blinding sun. "Except for that, that is..."
Penance's eyes were drawn to that larger island near the middle of the loch: the one he landed on some time ago, on his journey to find Uallas. He cocked his head at it.
"Do you know anything about that place, Struana? That larger island out there?"
The girl nodded:
"They call that the Island of Maolruibhe," she said. "Some people just call it Isle Maree. I did once, too, when I was too little to say 'Maolruibhe'. But I can now; I'm older, you know."
"Really, huh? You can say that, but you still can't say 'Dick drunk drink in a dish'?" Penance smiled.
"English is hard," the girl pouted.
"And ugly," Penance agreed.
"Let's land there!" the girl pointed at the large island. "It's got a wishing tree, you know!"
"Wanna pray for your unicorn, huh?"
Penance beached the small boat at the island tree line, and Struana shuttled off into them before he could stop her. She raced to that dead old tree hammered with copper coins— more 'copper coin' than 'tree', these days— and Penance chose to wander closer inland, sauntering around the remains of that stone church. The island, too, was a little more inviting, today: butterflies danced over the moss-covered remnants of stone pillars, and delicate rays of sunlight streamed in from the canopy above, highlighting a delicate cloud of pollen hovering in the air like a colony of fireflies.
Further in, however, beyond the churchyard ruins, the air seemed heavy. The pollen dangled more like an oppressive cloud, and the sweet smells of flowers and loch water were replaced with the rot of trees and a certain fungal odor. Penance couldn't place it.
The boy wandered to the center of the isle and leaned against that ancient stone well. He leaned over the gaping hole and stared at the black water sloshing quietly far below him. He looked up at the rope suspended over that well, and again he was somewhat puzzled by how fresh and new it looked compared to the ruins around him. He reached out to touch it, just as he did before, but this time he felt a certain prickliness in the hairs on his neck, and this was even before he grabbed the rope. It had nothing to do with the rope, in fact.
It had to do with a pair of leering eyes glued to his back.
Penance whipped around: a man reclined on the stone ruins behind him. He was tall and very lean— almost emaciated— and he was clothed quite scantily in fur shorts and a very loose shirt. His face was long and thin, with a wrinkled, sun-blasted brow set over two large, well-spaced eyes. His nose was crooked, dangling over a set of thin, chapped lips, and a set of particularly ratty teeth leered out of his head.
The most striking aspect about the man, however, was not his facial features, but rather his decoration: all along his face were painted intricate patterns— swirling, vine-like lines danced about different designs, most of which looked vaguely like Celtic crosses— and those patters were done up in dark brown tones and highlighted with an absolutely brilliant sky-blue paint.
"W— who are you?" Penance demanded.
The man tapped his sternum, laughing with his eyes:
"Abhag, sonny. That's what I am called. And... they call this one?" He motioned up and down Penance's body.
"Penance," the boy said. "What're you doing on this island?"
"Could ask you, sonny. Won't, though." Abhag looked at Penance with a narrow, cunning sneer. "Not so rude..."
"What's your business in Letterewe?"
The thin man's ratty teeth spread into an even deeper, more unsettling grin:
"Me, sonny? Oh, I'm just a humble servant, sonny. That's all. A humble, humble, humble servant."
"Of who? You're not a woodcutter, and you don't work any of the forges around here—"
"Oh, no, no! No, I don't sonny." The man giggled like a child; unlike Struana it was not cute and it was most certainly not charming. "No, no, my boy. I'm a far, far humbler fellow'n all of them— all the rest— believe you me! But my service sonny, well, my service is to something far grander, still."
"Who do you work for, then?" Penance asked.
"I am a vessel of the blessed blood, child: I am a follower of the Grand Dame of Uerturio, herself." The man made a grand gesture, cartwheeling off his stone and landing on the ground, where he bowed so deep that his face touched earth, and his hands extended out in a weird, overly-dramatized sign of respect.
Penance backed away from this display hesitantly, crouched at the ready. He waited for Abhag to explain, but when the man looked up at him he merely smiled with his eyes, apparently counting on his words, alone, to impress the boy.
"Kaaaaaay..." Penance drawled.
Just then Struana burst from the woods, running happily through the grass. She slowed when she saw the painted man, however, and quickly sidled over to Penance's side.
"C— c'mon, Penance," she whispered. "We gotta go home, now."
She tugged his sleeve, and the boy slowly followed her. He looked back at the crazy painted man, who chuckled at the pair and motioned to them with his hands:
"Be safe, will you, children? Careful crossing the water, eh? Of course this time you've got your own boat, am I right, sonny?"
Penance's brow ticked. He tried to turn around to speak more with the man, but Struana very insistently tugged him back to their boat. Penance last saw Abhag curling up along the rim of that ancient well, lovingly stroking the rope that plunged into the black water even as he mumbled through his cracked lips. He splayed out along the edge of the well and then curled up like some kind of dog at the foot of the bed, and continued plucking that string. He cooed an off-key melody:
"Waits he in the woods so moist,
Waits he, proudly and by choice,
Here, not under roof nor joist,
Waits for his mistress's voice..."
Penance and Struana shoved off onto the water in short order. Once they were well on their way back to the banks of Letterewe Penance pressed the girl about the man.
"Who was that, Struana? Have you ever seen him around, before?"
Struana shook her head.
"He said he was some kinda 'servant' for somebody: a 'grand dame'. Wonder what he meant by that."
"Uallas says that these islands were sometimes used by pagans," the girl said. "Still are, at times. They'd do things like sacrifice bulls and sprinkle the ground with their blood, to make it unsafe for anyone to walk on. It's a kind of magic, they say."
Penance glared at her:
"You didn't tell me that when you suggested we go there!"
Struana looked at the boy; even at such a young age she had her condescending look down pat:
"The magic: it's all just spook stories, Penance. It's not to be believed—"
"Says the girl who believes in fairies?"
"'Cause fairies are real!" Struana again went to playing with the water along the edge of the boat. "Anyway, Uallas warned me, once: he said that I'm to stay away from any painted men, should I see them."
Penance took one last look at the island, and then he shook his head.
"Yeah, well, if they're all as goofy as that guy was then that's probably good advice."
With that their day came to an end, and as the sun came down on their long walk home Penance suddenly remembered his conversation with Uallas early that morning. He hadn't thought about it once all day— Struana had seen to that, damn-near wearing him out. Those issues— how he felt when landing his 'killing' blow against Uallas, what kind of person his training was turning him into, and whether or not he'd end up actually playing the Game— were still sour in his mouth, but not as sour as they had been. This little break, it seems, was a very good thing.
Penance stopped on the path to the homestead, and Struana looked up at him. She was all smiles:
"I had a great time today, Penance!" She tittered. The girl skipped up the path, still moving with boundless energy.
But he could guarantee that Struana would sleep, tonight.
Penance blinked, staring down at his feet: as it turns out, so would he. When he looked back up the path at the girl he was also all smiles.
"I had a good time too, Struana..."
Penance ambled up the path, whistling to himself. It might've only been a day, but it was a good day. It was quite nice, it turned out, to get a little rest. It was a good thing he enjoyed his rest, because it was not to last.
Twelve days later another Immortal found his way to Letterewe.
And, shortly thereafter, Penance would find himself with his first official kill.
