Week 125 – The Countess' Courtyard

First Entry: History Repeating, Red

Rache, Harlequin Jester

Thorel says that I've been gone for a year, and I don't know if I believe him or not.

I don't remember much. Acting a bit mad with Picvini. The crazy shivery feelings, the gongs and the noise, the ecstasy of that wicked rhythm.

Picvini is dead. Pevrel is dead. Raoullin is dead. Miron is dead. The Heir is dead, which seems simultaneously impossible and inevitable now that I think about it.

Was I really dead? Thorel tells me I was all broken inside. He put me in the ground himself, but the grave's empty now.

I wish I could remember.

I wonder why Maynet insisted I came with them into the Courtyard? It reminds me of that place beneath the manor, in its way. The hair on my forearms prickles and stands upright when I think of it. And I think of Picvini and I believe my heart will burst.

Where have I been this last year? Have I been anywhere? Or has my soul been wandering in spaces between times?

Maybe everything just keeps happening again and again.

Second Entry: The Gate of Guilt

Pettiloup, Falconer

This damned red light reminds me of the burning villages when I was raiding with the Vvulf. Maybe this hell I've been cast into is punishment for that, for all the men and women I saw murdered and ravaged.

You'd think swearing to kill that bastard would get me some credit, but somebody else got to him first. How am I supposed to get absolution now? Am I to mortify my flesh like Maynet?

A joke, a joke, and it drops like lead from my fingertips onto the paper. The red light makes me remember things I want to forget. I can still hear that one poor girl.

And I'm doing nothing to help the ones disappearing from the Hamlet. I'm doing nothing for anyone. I'm just taking my bow and using it to forget for a little while. Damn it all.

I hate this. I hate it all. Maybe I'll get lucky and one of those fecking vampire things will eat me and I won't have to think about this anymore.

I want to leave, but where would I go?

Pettiloup.

Third Entry: The Gate of Anger

Couer, Occultist

I knew this would happen.

This damned Courtyard with that heathen fool Maynet and those two stupid girls. I should never have agreed to come.

Trudging through this miserable swamp, beset by insects and monsters and the inane babble of my companions. I almost welcomed the sting that returned my madness and stripped away the need to restrain my tongue.

It's been barely two months since this curse was lifted and I am glad it has returned, if only to spite the others.

Nouh ibn Abdolreza.

Fourth Entry: Back from Hell

Iris, Pariah Flagellant, rescued from the Courtyard

Light! Light! The Light is in my heart and eyes and I knew it would come for me!

Hanging from those chains, with blood dripping down my face, I saw a vision. My sight was drowned in red and my eyes were anointed with holy suffering, and I saw the Light.

Every lash was a tender caress and a reminder that salvation was coming. Salvation and a terrible, wonderful burden!

I almost doubted when I saw him for the first time. I didn't think he could possibly be coming to save me. But I saw the wounds in his body and the holy peace in his eyes, and then he struck my chains away and his blood splashed on my face and mixed with my own, and the visions came again and I saw that the raw wounds on my chest and belly formed the same holy brand that shone on his skin.

We prayed together and mortified our flesh and howled to heaven in the euphoria of blood and holy grace.

My sins fall away from me in streaming crimson and scraps of flesh, and the Light is in my soul. Evil cannot stand against it.

Fifth Entry: Misgivings

Thorel, Abomination

Rache went to the Courtyard.

That flagellant, Maynet, talked the Heiress into it. She'd never even met Rache before. She listens to him too much. He is not a stable man.

I know these fanatics. Raoullin was not like them. He'd passed through heresy and a deep, dangerous fanaticism but he emerged with a well of patience and kindness in his heart. Maynet is simply insane, and that girl they brought back from the Courtyard is as mad as he is.

Rache seems well, at least. Something to be thankful for.

Now to hunt down vampires until we can wring an invitation back into the courtyard from one of them. Maybe then we can get some peace.

Licinius Thorel, Dr. Theol., Dr. Md.