Chapter Six

Cassandra stood at the window, staring at the past. She had been up for some time, but had never really been asleep anyway. There was no time or energy for sleep. Not anymore.

She felt a gentle hand on her arm, turning her. Duncan's caring eyes offered her what he held in his other hand – a cup of hot tea. She started to turn it down, but changed her mind. He could not make things better for her, but why deny him the comfort of trying?

She had decided not to blame him for the decision he'd made last night. Cassandra understood the young Scot's somewhat simplistic approach to life; envied it, truth be told. Would that things were truly the way he liked to see them: evil = enemy, friend = good. He had spoken last night of shades of gray, but she knew that it was just an intellectual concept to him, not something he'd faced head-on and really understood on a deep emotional level.

With a pang of regret, she realized that by the time this was all done, if he still lived, he'd have more than a passing familiarity with the notion. She briefly mourned in advance the impending loss of his remaining form of innocence.

Duncan continued to hover nearby, ready to offer assistance, but obviously without a clue as to what kind he could give. Cassandra gripped his arm in gratitude, then turned to lean against his strength as his arm lifted to grant her entry into his embrace.

"It'll be all right," he said softly.

The bitter laugh escaped before she could stop it. "Well, it will be resolved somehow, that much is certain."

Perhaps because he could do nothing to alleviate the pain he could hear, Duncan put his other arm around her and rested his head against hers. She knew he was becoming increasingly troubled about Methos – perhaps was not even aware of that yet – and she wished she could spare him the pain of learning the truth about what he thought was a close friend.

The thought of Duncan and Methos associating as friends was so disquieting, so akin to a betrayal, however unwitting, that she pulled away from the younger immortal abruptly. His face clearly questioned what he'd done to offend her, but she had no internal resources available at the moment to reassure or comfort him. There was only the low hum of chronic anger, and humiliation, and hate.

She crossed to the sofa and sat at the end, pulling her legs up and under her. He followed but, responding to the nonverbal cue, sat at the far end from her. It was a long time before he dared to break the silence.

"Cassandra, I want you to know that whatever you went through… whatever… happened… Well, you can talk to me about anything." In his clumsy way, she knew he was offering his shoulder to cry on, but he probably wasn't even conscious of his second agenda: to discover exactly what his "friend" might be capable of.

Some part of Duncan was still clinging to the hope that Methos had simply "fallen in with the wrong crowd" and had only been present during the atrocities, not a full-fledged participant; certainly not an instigator. He was like a child who, upon learning that his father had committed murder, sought to determine that it was really an accident, or self-defense, or a big misunderstanding.

Perhaps, Cassandra decided, it was time for Duncan to grow up.

Taking a deep breath, she began.

"That first night with Methos was bad. I was his new toy, one that had to be explored, prodded, tested, to find out what made me tick. It was a night of great discovery, for both of us. He learned about what frightened me, angered me, what pained me the most; what he could do to provoke me into greater resistance or deeper timidity; what I would do to avoid additional punishment." She turned her head, looking Duncan in the eye. "I learned what it was like to live in Hell."

She watched his face, saw the resistance. No, he was thinking, the Methos I know would not do such things. My friend could not be capable of that. There must be some explanation, some sort of mistake…

"That first night was bad," she repeated, "but the nights that followed were worse. Because he was armed with the knowledge he'd gained about me, and his next step was to use it to systematically break down my defenses, to strip me down to the bare essentials. How many slaps were needed to make me flinch at the sudden movement of his hand? How many stabbings to the heart would it take to make me submit instantly just at the sight of a knife?"

Duncan shifted on the sofa, his emotional resistance still whirling in his dark eyes. She pressed on.

"And it wasn't simply torture for the pleasure of causing pain, you understand. There was no passion in it for him, at least not after that first night; it was all to his purpose, to make me ready to be remade as his perfect slave. First you have to knead and manipulate the lump of clay, you know, make it pliant, before you can mold it to your chosen form. He was simply carrying out a well-thought out method of retraining."

She saw in the Scot's eyes a flickering – perhaps recognizing a trait of his "friend?"

"But even his early cruelty was easier to bear than what he inflicted on me later. As my 'retraining' progressed, and succeeded, I began to… look forward to our time together. The days were long and dull and filled with labor. At least at night… I had contact with someone, even if it was someone who had begun as a tormenter. He began to show small kindnesses, or what passed for kindnesses under those circumstances. When punishment is the standard, not being punished can be seen as kindness.

"Anyway, it began to seem as though he… cared. About me. He seemed to ignore the other women the Horsemen kept, opting for me over the rest. Eventually, I spent all my time in his tent, caring for his things, preparing for his arrival at the end of a long, hard day. I began to feel," she managed a cynical smile, "as though I was his woman and not merely his slave, though certainly there was never any balance of power between us. He was simply my life, my day and my night, and the only thing I had to look forward to other than hard labor and arbitrary cruelty from the other Horsemen. He was, at least, preferable to that sadist Caspian or the power-mad Kronos. Or at least, I came to believe that he was."

Duncan would no longer make eye contact with her, staring across the room, motionless except for the vigorous working of his jaw muscle. His body was rigid; one hand gripped the arm of the sofa such that his knuckles stood out white on his tanned skin.

"Do you know, Duncan, what it feels like to believe you are cared for, and then be tossed aside like a broken jug or a worn-out saddle?" His eyes lowered, but still he would not turn his face to her. "Well, I found out, in the most heartless possible way.

"I had always noticed Kronos watching us together, could see him seething as Methos' preference became more and more noticeable. Kronos liked to control everything, including the private lives of his brothers. An allegiance formed with anyone outside that circle was a threat to his power.

"The night finally came when he could no longer tolerate the situation. Methos had begun to treat me almost tenderly. I even dared to think that he loved me!" She gave another bitter laugh. "What a fool I was, though I had no objective way to gauge such things. If someone stops beating and torturing you and you gradually stop believing that each day might be your last on earth, then maybe that is love, in your world.

"Anyway, the Horsemen had just returned from a long ride and I had everything ready for Methos, just the way he liked things. Cool wine, fresh fruit, myself made as pleasing to look at as possible. He noticed these things, and indicated his approval. It meant the world to me as he stroked my cheek and really seemed to look into my eyes. In his, I thought I saw a glimmer of a man unlike the one who had taken me by force and cold-heartedly destroyed and transformed me.

"Then, Kronos barged into the tent and announced that since they shared everything, he assumed that Methos was ready to share me. Methos stood and faced him, and I believed with all my heart that he would tell Kronos 'no, go to hell, she is mine and mine alone.'" With an ironic smirk, Cassandra looked at Duncan, who this time returned her gaze. "Can you imagine someone in my situation actually believing
that? Or that it even seemed like something to hope for?" She shook her head, still smirking, as though laughing at some foible of innocent girlhood.

"But he didn't say that to Kronos," Duncan prompted. She heard not dread in his voice, but resignation. He knew how the story ended, but she wouldn't spare him the telling.

"No, he didn't. He faced Kronos for a brief moment, then stepped aside without so much as a glance in my direction and let Kronos drag me, screaming, from his tent. He wouldn't even meet my gaze as I was taken away. He just listened to me beg for his help and did nothing." She stood, still holding the untouched tea, and took a couple of steps away from the sofa.

"That was the final straw for me, that perverse betrayal. I realized that I had nothing left to lose; to remain in that situation was a living death. How much worse could physical death possibly be? I got a lucky opportunity to stab Kronos – not realizing that it would only temporarily kill him – and fled the camp to the desert and eventual freedom."

They were silent for a long time. When Cassandra turned to look at him, she saw a different Duncan MacLeod than the one who'd started this conversation. He looked at once enhanced and diminished, and grimly resolute.

When he met her eyes, she softened a little. In his, she saw the pain of unwelcome knowledge, of empathy for the trials of one friend, and the anguish of betrayal by another. Gone was some of the simplicity that had endowed his eyes with much of their lively glint that always thrilled her. She had one more twinge of guilt for robbing him of the comfort of his illusion; this she ruthlessly suppressed. The time for clear-sighted understanding was upon him, upon them both.

Setting down the tea cup, Cassandra returned to the sofa, this time sitting next to him and wrapping him in an embrace meant to comfort. He submitted, putting one hand on her arm, but his body remained rigid and tense. It occurred to her that this story had altered not just Duncan's relationship with Methos but the one he had with her as well. The message was so offensive that it had irreversibly contaminated his rapport with the messenger. Her sense of loss was great, but balanced by the belief that she'd done what had to be done.

We all have to grow up sometime, she thought.

Duncan pulled free from her and rose to go stand at the window, staring at the future.