AN: What's this? A chapter on a Tuesday? WHAAAT?
I felt generous. Or I needed to stroke my ego. Either way, enjoy an additional chapter.
Nitwit. Blubber. Oddment. Tweak.
Saeed had been right; the boy had more freedom as one of the Shah's possessions than he had ever experienced in his life, save for those first few days after his escape. He was treated like any other man, not like a servant or slave. While he was to be chaperoned wherever he went, his movements were not restricted.
About twice per week he would be brought before the Shah, who he would have to entertain in one way or another. At first, it was mostly the boy standing incredibly still as the Shah inspected nearly every inch of him, listing off various oddities he found on the way. The older man insisted that the boy sit in on lessons with his children when he learned how limited the boy's vocabulary truly was. When asked about his schooling, the boy had merely shook his head.
The boy thrived once he began his schooling, and in two years he had all but caught up with the Shah's eldest daughter, Azadeh, who was nearly finished with her schooling. She was seventeen years old and the very picture of beauty with long black hair she kept tied back in a thick braid, a radiant smile that could light up an entire room, and large brown eyes that sparkled in the sunlight.
Although she looked upon the boy in the same fearful way that most had in the past, he found himself quite smitten with her.
One of his greatest freedoms, at least in his own opinion, was that he was allowed to cover his face. At least, when he was not with the Shah. He had masks of silk and leather, as well as scarves with pre-cut eye holes that he could tie over his head when he chose to leave the confines of the palace. The sun was harsh and his wispy blond hair couldn't protect the delicate skin of his scalp from its rays.
He had taken great care to never be seen by Azadeh with his face uncovered, but he knew that the Shah had likely told her of his corpse-like visage. There was little other reason he could see for the pained way she looked at him or the soft, almost kind words she spoke to him. She wouldn't make eye contact with him; most wouldn't.
He spent the majority of his free time in the Shah's personal library reading everything he could get his hands on. There was a small space that he found he could crawl into and nearly disappear between two of the ornate bookcases, and he delighted in discovering that he would still have enough light to read by.
"Boy," she called on a particularly hot and sunny summer's day. She did not know about his hiding place, and was confused when she entered the library to find it seemingly empty.
The looked up from the book he'd been reading about architecture. "Yes, highness?" he asked. She jumped at the sound of his disembodied voice.
"My father wishes to see you," she said after a moment.
The boy sighed and closed his book before hoisting himself up and out of his hiding place. The girl's eyes widened in surprise as she watched him come out of what she'd thought was a space too small for someone to fit into, particularly someone so tall.
"Where might I find him?" he asked as he smoothed out the robes he wore. The bright colors of the silks that adorned his skeletal form made his skin seem even paler than it was. Though he already was covered from his neck to his ankles, he knew that much of his arms and the lower half of his face was exposed. The scarf he'd tied over his head to shield him from the sun left the lower half of his face exposed, starting just below where his nose should have been.
Azadeh had every reason to stare at him. She'd only ever seen him covered with one of his masks, and they covered his entire face. She hadn't been properly prepared for the papery, yellowed skin of his chin and neck or his chapped, white lips. Still, he grew angry with the way she stared.
"Highness?" he snapped, drawing her out of the strange, fascinated trance she seemed to have fallen into. "Where am I to go?"
"Father would like to meet you in the north tower." The boy cringed. He'd taken interest in the north tower when he'd first arrived years ago. It was where prisoners were held and executions were performed. Instinctively he found himself rubbing his throat. The girl smiled— how could she smile while he was within her sight? He couldn't understand— and shook her head slightly.
"He's got something to ask you is all," she said. "He's got a job he thinks you'll be interested in— can I ask you something?"
The boy looked at her, confused, but sighed and nodded. He knew what the question was likely to be.
"You always have your face covered. Is…" She couldn't quite come up with the words she wanted to use, so she gestured to her face. "Is all of that from your time in the freak show, or—"
"I was disfigured from birth," the boy replied, cutting her off. "Though I have far more scars now than I did then."
"May I see?" she asked. He felt his blood run cold and his heart all but stop beating completely. He shook his head.
"You truly do not want to see," he told her. She put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow.
"Technically you belong to my father. I could order you to remove your mask."
"Highness—"
"Azadeh," she corrected him. It was his turn to raise an eyebrow.
"You would threaten to use your nobility to force my hand and then insist I use your first name in the same breath?" he asked.
"Father doesn't like to be kept waiting," she said, choosing to ignore his words.
The boy nodded once and turned to leave.
"Boy," she called. He stopped and waited. "Aren't you going to finally tell me your name?"
"…I already knew your name."
"That's not the point."
"I don't have a name."
"How can you not have a name?" Azadeh demanded. The boy sighed and raised his hands to untie the scarf that covered his face. They were trembling as he undid the simple knot that held it in place.
Though there were nights that he still woke up shaking and unable to breathe from horrible nightmares of his past, there had not been a time he'd begun trembling in fear since the Shah had granted him his own large bedchamber with no lock on the door— an affirmation of his freedom— but he was certain now that the Shah's daughter could see how he shook now.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and turned to face her once more. She gasped quite loudly and staggered back three steps before steadying herself. As he opened his eyes, he found her staring at him still, wide-eyed, with her hands clamped firmly across her mouth as if to prevent herself from screaming. He allowed her another agonizing minute to memorize his cursed countenance before he finally covered himself with the scarf again.
"Tell me, what name would you give such a hideous beast?" he asked, keeping his voice steady. She could see the pain coupled with anger in his eyes. She said nothing. "That is precisely what my mother came up with. In the freak show I was the Demon Boy and the Living Corpse. Tell me, are those acceptable, respectable names?"
"I didn't mean— I didn't know. I am sorry."
The boy turned and strode quickly and clumsily out of the library. As he crossed the lavish west yard, he tripped and landed splayed in a small reflecting pond. He cringed when he heard laughter and realized that someone had seen his embarrassment.
Although his first instinct was to search for the person who laughed at his misfortune and try to defend himself, he fought the urge to look around and instead focused on picking himself up. He groaned as he realized that his robes were now covered in mud. His room was near the south tower and he was already keeping the Shah waiting; he couldn't run and change.
Instead, he slipped out of the outermost layer and flipped it inside-out before putting it back on. The heat of the day would dry him long before he reached the Shah, and the fabric was thick enough that the mud would not show through.
As he approached the tower, he was filled with a sense of dread. For the second time in a single day, he found himself trembling as he ascended the stairs, following the sound of the Shah's laughter as he was entertained by somebody as he waited for his corpse-boy to arrive.
"Ah, there you are!" the Shah exclaimed as the boy entered the room. "I was about to send Saeed to find you. Azadeh forgets so often to do what I've asked of her."
"I apologize," the boy said. "I was speaking with your daughter and did not realize how much time had passed."
"So she did remember to find you. Splendid." The Shah smiled and stood up from the lavish pile of cushions on which he had been sitting. "I have quite an offer to make you, boy. I have seen some of the books you've been reading. How would you like to practice some of the skills you've read about?"
"I don't understand," the boy said hesitantly.
"Up those steps behind you, all the way at the top of the tower, sits a man awaiting punishment for his crimes. He has occupied that cell for five years now, and I think that is long enough. It is time for his sentence to be carried out."
"His sentence?" The boy was only half-playing dumb. Is he really about to ask me to kill someone, he wondered. He'd seen the question dance in the man's eyes before as he'd talked endlessly about topics of little import to him. Why is he so afraid to just come out and ask?
"By now you know I've heard the rumors," he continued. "I've seen the way my slaves look at you and speak of you. They fear you because they believe you killed that man Firouz. And I believe they're right." There was actual, physical pain in the boy's chest when the Shah's gaze turned from friendly to cold as he spoke those words. "I believe that you are a cold-blooded killer. And I can use that. I will offer you a tidy sum to execute the man in that cell as efficiently as you can."
The boy stared at him, stunned. He had never entertained the idea that the Shah could see him as an equal, but to be called a cold-blooded killer… He couldn't wrap his head around it.
"Do we have a deal, boy?"
With a heavy sigh, the boy nodded. One of the Shah's slaves approached him and handed him a length of rope and a knife. Wordlessly, he turned and retreated to the stairs. He hesitated, looking up the seemingly-endless staircase he was to climb, before squaring his shoulders and beginning his ascension. The Shah laughed darkly as the boy disappeared from his view.
With each floor he passed, the staircase grew more and more decrepit. As he approached the top of the tower, he found himself having to dodge debris and avoid wide black holes in the stairs that threatened to swallow him up.
At the top, he found a small landing occupied by one of the Shah's guards, a young man he'd seen a handful of times in the past year or so. Behind the man was a large, locked door.
As he approached, the young man turned and unlocked the door behind him and stepped out of the boy's way as best he could. The boy hesitated as he grabbed the handle to the door.
"If I might offer a word of advice," the guard said as the boy pulled the door open. The boy stopped, listening. "Don't hide your face. Let him die in fear. What he's done is unforgivable."
The boy nodded and opened the door. Inside the cell he found a mangy looking man of about thirty curled up in the corner under a tattered blanket. Instantly, he took pity on the man. His living conditions were comparable to those that the boy had faced in the freak show. As he took in the man's cell, he wondered what exactly the man had done to deserve such a fate.
It was as the guard pulled the door closed that the man woke. With the door closed, there was only a small rectangle of light to break up the near pitch black darkness of the cell.
"Is someone there?" the man asked in what the boy believed to be French. He wasn't as good with French as he was with the other languages he'd been exposed to. Rather than stammer and show weakness now, he said nothing. "Of course there's no one there. There never is. That's how they're punishing me," the man continued. The boy stayed near the door, safely hidden in the darkness, and watched the man as he stretched and sat upright.
"Did you at least leave me some food this time, or was that just noise to disrupt my sleep once again?" the man grumbled as he pushed himself to his feet. The man's movements were small and pained; he'd obviously spent many a night clinging desperately to that tattered blanket for warmth. Beyond the way the man hunched over, the boy was startled to see another person as thin as he was. The man's ribcage was clearly visible. How long have they been torturing this man?
"No food?" the man asked as he felt around the floor by the door. His voice was filled with sadness as he said the words. "Of course. They intend to starve me after all. Too cowardly to carry out my sentence themselves. The Shah can't watch the life leave someone's eyes himself. That would be too messy."
"What crime have you committed to warrant such a sentence as this?" The boy's voice echoed loudly through the small cell, causing the man to jump and look around for its source.
"Who's there?" he asked. "Whose is that voice?"
"Answer the question," the boy demanded. Outside, he could hear the guard retreating. He wondered absently if the Shah could hear his words.
"What does it matter?" the man asked. "What will recounting my crimes once more do?"
The boy crossed the room to where the man was crouched over the corner he'd been sleeping and drew the knife he'd been given. At once, he pressed it to the man's neck.
"Do not toy with me, old man. I have asked you a question and I expect you to answer," the boy growled. To his surprise, the man chuckled.
"So, they've finally sent someone to kill me. Five years I've rotted away here, almost thought the Shah had finally forgotten about me." The boy pressed the blade more firmly against the man's skin. "I was the royal doctor. When the Shah's wife went into labor with their youngest child, there were complications. The Shah went against my advisements and both the babe and his wife perished. I am here because I could not save them."
The boy was stunned by the man's declaration.
"Were you really unaware?" the man asked. "I am here because my negligence caused the Shah to lose two of his family members. I've awaited my death these past years, but it's not come. It seems that will finally be remedied." It was then that the man looked directly at the boy. "I am ready."
"I—" The boy couldn't form words. He had expected the man to have stolen something or actively killed someone. He hadn't expected a doctor. He sheathed the knife in his belt and took the length of rope, fashioning it into a sloppy noose from a diagram he'd seen in a book.
"I've gone mental," the man said. "I'm talking to voices in my head. There's no one—" Those would prove to be his last words as the boy slipped the noose over his head and pulled it taut. The feeble man gave less of a struggle than Firouz had, though the boy knew that was mostly because the man had so little strength left in his body.
He felt more that he was performing a mercy killing than an execution, and he felt slightly dirty knowing that he would be paid for this act.
When he was sure that the man was dead, he removed the rope from his neck and approached the door. The guard opened it for him immediately. Without a word, the boy ran down the stairs, returning to the Shah only because his guards blocked him from exiting the tower completely.
"I trust that the deed is done?" the Shah asked. The boy nodded, saying nothing. His heart was pounding and the way that the fabric of his clothing rubbed against his skin was suddenly intensely uncomfortable and all he wanted was to go curl up in his overly plush bed and cry until he fell asleep. But he wasn't sure he still knew how to cry, and even if he did he knew that it would do him no good. It wouldn't bring the man back to life, it wouldn't absolve him of his perceived crimes.
He couldn't understand why the Shah would demand a man suffer that way for the death of his wife. There was no one he could say he would want someone killed for. Not even his mother.
"Good. As promised, here is your payment." The Shah tossed a purse brimming with coins toward the boy. It landed on the polished stone floor in front of the boy and slid until it hit his foot and came to a stop. He reached down and picked it up. He had never seen so much money, and he currently resided in a palace plated in gold.
"I may call on you again to perform a similar service in the future. Do you find that to be agreeable, boy?"
The boy hesitated. Sure, there had been an enjoyable rush as he'd strangled the man to death, just as there had been with Firouz. But could he really kill another person? He wasn't sure. He was detached enough from the general population that the thought of taking a life didn't disturb him so much as it might've disturbed the average person, but there was still a strange, nagging voice in the back of his head that told him it was immoral.
He nodded. "I would be pleased to serve you," he said, choosing his words carefully. If he was to retain his freedom, he decided, it was best to keep the Shah happy. Saeed made eye contact with the boy briefly as the guards were ordered away from the staircase. Was that hatred that he saw, hidden behind that pained smile? The boy couldn't be sure. Saeed turned away from him almost as soon as their eyes had met. The boy blinked, and he was gone.