6.
(Inn on the road to Neverwinter)
I lie back on the coverlet of the bed with my eyes closed. When I lie this way, I can only see the darkness within myself, watch it swirl, see it congeal upon itself as it dissipates and forms anew. The darkness and I are sisters. She spares me from the indignity of long-lost memories. I never welcome them, but still they come. From the inn's common room downstairs I can hear the mournful melody that some less-than-talented bard weaves on his pipe. It isn't anywhere near worth the supper he'll earn, but it will do to order these thoughts.
Music, the one thing that used to awaken me, only passes over me with its hills and valleys. It is a wreathe of smoke around my room that I cannot see or touch. If even that cannot move me, perhaps I will touch the surface of this memory. And then I will rise from my bed and put my pipe aside. When I walk to the window with its rough, poorly crafted glass to look outside, I will not be seeing the road. I will still see that boy- and he was no more than a boy, even at nineteen. I will see his eyes, like glass, bluer than blue ought to be, know the scent of him like a lamp filled with oil and half burned down. I will recall again that I had never known such perfect, long-fingered hands or skin so uncommonly pure. How his voice lived softly within my chest when our love was born, that day in the snow.
I can withdraw the memory from its ice-encrusted casing, but even then, he will still be standing there facing away from me. It will remind me that I did not expect that it would be the last time that I would see him. I could not have been more wrong, or I would have taken time with the kiss and make it go on until it grew dark around us. I loved him. I take the thought into my mind and test it, but it finds no place, no weight.
Some say that there is happiness in love. As for me, I know that whatever gods loom over us and mock us, they will not allow it. I will crush his memory again like the most fragile of flowers that can not survive a winter. And every face that I see that is lit with terror at my approach will take on that of the one who held that love in check. That hate-filled she-shrew whose eyes were always so narrow and so judging. The one who he called "Mother". The one who by her deeds had put the dagger into my chest and drawn it downward. I died that day. I fell onto the street, curled in upon myself to know that he was gone from me. I could have lived, could have stood, could have insisted upon crawling forth from that shell. But I did not. Instead, I watched as the other self peeled away from me, and left me lying there, ending, withering, no longer wanting. I would kill- I would kill again and again if it could ruin the portrait of her which hung above his bed. Love your mother, the priests will say.
I will love your mother, every day that I bring down this blade.
There is an open bag of coins at the foot of the bed. Their metallic tone winks at me where they tumble forth from the gray sack that holds them in check. A kill for a month of pleasures. At last I seem to be making the right contacts. It is a difficult art, keeping yourself unseen from those who would not appreciate the competition. But I am becoming more known through my efforts.
The nobleman whose entrails I opened tonight like a squealing swine made his end more colorful that I'd intended. When at last I moved down his body from those sightless, wide eyes to the ring on his finger, I had to cut the ring free from its coveted position. Red. Red, like the stone in Cedric's ring. I decide to have the stone reset into a pendant, where I shall wear it like a queen against the breast he no longer touches. And I will smile that crimson-tinged smile comes after a tasting. Is there fear in the salt of him? Oh, yes.
I hear that she is dead now. Did I kill her by the wishing? I would, with bloody hands, if she had not been so out of reach. In this I have failed myself.
Five hard raps upon the door.
Wine or sex, or you'll wish you hadn't come, Bishop.
I'm certain that similar scenes are repeated all over the city tonight. A man greets his partner at the door, and she embraces him, whining of the day's happenings. But this is not my partner, and the most love that I can muster is a recognizance that the man is proficient with his cock. He hasn't brought wine. He looks down at the bag of silver and gold that tips over onto the faded floor rug. Then, in one motion, he takes hold of my arm, twisting it, forcing me to my knees. He roughly poses me so that I face away from him, so that all that he can see is the shirt he strips away from me and my long, black hair.
"You were watching her again today, weren't you?" I mock him, but he is stiff as the floor that my knees press into, uncaring. He thrusts two of his fingers into my mouth.
"Be. Quiet." They are two distinct and separate words. Here on the floor he proceeds to unceremoniously fuck me as though we were two wolves in the wild. He is grunting charmingly with each thrust. I bite down on one of his fingers until I taste his blood. Once he says her name while he yanks back on my hair, and I laugh at him. Bishop pays no attention to my taunts, but goes on assaulting me in a direct, pounding rhythm until it turns to a rush of shoulder-tingling pleasure. I give in to it for the moment.
His body's insistence on seeking out the deepest part of mine keeps him fighting to steady the pressure burning the muscles in his well-shaped thighs to their limit. He goes on, savagely, almost angrily driving himself into me. The force of the act shoves the sack of coins onto its side, where they roll and spill about our legs. Yes, I think, yes, let us be what we were intended to be, and nothing more than this. Animals. Rutting in the dirt on the floor amongst the spoils that we have won. He's drawing blood again with his teeth in my neck. And I ponder how alike we are to demand only this from our lives- blood, a rousing fuck, and a fistful of gold.