Chapter 52: Bishop's Past
Nim walked in silence beside Bishop down the road back towards that hateful city Neverwinter. She really wished she was heading the opposite way, towards the freedom of the forest, but it would have to remain just a wish. Still, she felt a little more relaxed than before. Sex really was a great way to relieve tension and a small smile curved her lips at the memory of the afternoon she just spent with the man at her side. The third time she had been the one on top, taking control, driving him wild and it had been most satisfying to see how exhausted he was when she was finished. She looked at him next to her and her eyes landed on the scratches on his cheek and this brought back the memory of how she had treated him.
"I'm sorry for before," she told him. Seeing his questioning look she elaborated. "When you were trying to tell me you understood what I was feeling and I threw it in your face. You didn't deserve that."
"Well I'd say you more than made up for it elf," he snickered and smacked her butt.
"Beast!" she hissed in mock indignation.
"Hah! I'm not the one with the claws," he fingered the scratches on his cheek. "Can't wait for Duncan's reaction when he sees these," he chuckled.
The mention of her uncle brought to mind her earlier anger and its cause. She frowned, wondering if she should bring the subject up now, then realized that she had no choice. She had to know why her uncle was so against her relationship that he would attempt to break it up. "I know that I told you I wouldn't pry into your past but what I overheard my uncle saying earlier leaves me with no choice." She saw a wary look enter his eyes and sighed.
"What exactly did he say?" Bishop growled.
"Duncan said he saved your life but that now he regrets having done that," she answered. "It seems he heard some things about you after the fact that changed his opinion. When I left with Nevalle he practically demanded that I tell him what had angered me. When I did, he mentioned that there was some truth to the rumors. The rumors were that you were once part of a Luskan assassination squad."
Bishop said nothing at first, but despite the neutral tone of her voice, the look in her eyes said she would have an answer from him. He supposed he should consider himself lucky that he had gone this long without having to talk about it, but he still had to wonder if she would hate him once he told her the ugly truth of his past. "Yes, I worked for Luskan for a while and it was not by choice. However, I never was a member of an assassination squad becuase I didn't pass the final test." He couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice.
Nimbrethil studied him for a moment, seeing the anger and the pain in his eyes. "Tell me what happened," she said quietly.
"In order for you to understand I'll have to go back to the beginning," he replied, his voice cold. "I lived in a filthy little village much like West Harbor. My father was an uneducated boor who preferred drinking and gambling to working. As a child there was never enough food in the house and I was always hungry. So from an early age I began to steal from others in the village. At first it was just what I needed to ease the hunger, but I got so good at it that I began to take more. Now, everyone in the village suspected I was the culprit, but I made damn sure they couldn't prove anything. The only one who knew was my mother because I gave her the extra food I took, for she was always hungry too."
"You didn't take just food though did you?" Nimbrethil asked knowingly.
"No, I started filching money and stashing it away," he replied. "I had a vague plan, like all children do, of getting away from there some day. I knew I would need money and as soon as I felt I had enough I planned to leave and take my mother with me. Things don't always go the way we plan."
"True," she snorted. "I certainly never planned for my life to take the direction it has."
Bishop heard the bitterness in her voice she was unable to hide, but said nothing. "One day, when I was ten, a group of four Luskan soldiers were near our village when night fell and they decided they didn't feel like sleeping out of doors. No one knew why they were in Neverwinter territory, for they didn't say and everyone was too afraid to ask. They demanded that they be put up for the night and my father, spineless boot licker that he was, eagerly told them to use our house. After dinner that night my father asked the Captain if he wanted to play some cards before he retired and he agreed. Now, even though my father liked to gamble he wasn't very good at it and soon he had lost all the money he had. He tried to get it back with a last final bet and put up this ring he had as collateral, he was that sure he would win. The ring was gold with a large diamond, or so he told them. He wagered it and lost, then one of the others in the group did something that revealed the ring to be a fake and the captain demanded something else to cover the debt. Well, you just don't tell a Luskan captain you can't pay what you owe," he said bitterly.
Nimbrethil shivered at the cold anger in his voice and had the feeling she wasn't going to like what was coming next. Still, she had asked to know and so she merely told him to continue, bracing herself for what he would say.
"My mother was not a great beauty, but she was pretty enough to catch the eye of the captain. The captain told my father that he would consider the debt paid in full if he and his men got to screw my mother. I never saw such a look of terror on her face as she had at those words and I thought there was no way my father would agree. Then the captain said if that wasn't acceptable, that he would take the payment out of my father's hide."
"Let me guess," Nimbrethil interjected. "You're father wasn't enough of a man to take his punishment?" The derision in her voice was quite plain.
"Yeah, he was a coward and he caved in to the captain," Bishop spat. "I knew then that it was up to me to do something to protect her and so I snuck up behind the captain and lifted the dagger from his belt. I didn't know what I thought killing the captain would accomplish, but I tried anyway. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as good at being sneaky as I thought I was. It's easy to steal from dumb peasants and complaisant merchants. It is much different trying to steal from someone who lives their life constantly on the alert for trouble. The captain easily stopped me from stabbing him in the back and threw me to the floor at my father's feet. Instead of being angry though, he laughed and said I had spirit and was more of a man than my father. He said they were always on the look out for kids like me and then made me an offer. He told me that they would leave my mother alone if I agreed to go with them and serve Luskan. My mother burst into tears at this and begged them not to take me away, that she would do anything they wanted, but the captain ignored her. Obviously, finding potential recruits was more important to them than slaking their lust. The captain warned me that I couldn't agree and then change my mind later on. If I chose to go with them then I would be in service to Luskan until he felt that the debt was paid. Being a child, I thought that it wouldn't take long to work off the debt and then I could go home again, so I quickly agreed to the captain's proposal and the next day they left taking me with them."
"I'm guessing that everytime you thought the debt was paid the captain found some way of keeping you around," Nimbrethil said quietly.
"Actually, it wasn't like that at all, which surprised me. I thought that he would be having me slave away doing mundane chores for him but that wasn't the case," Bishop continued. "As we rode away he told me that he and his men were part of an elite group which was hard to gain membership to. He said I showed some of the necessary skills to become a member and told me he would help me refine those skills. You see, even though I had no chance of killing him the night before, my courage to try impressed him. He told me that if I got good enough and proved my loyalty, then someday I could become a member of this highly respected and feared group. Now you can imagine the impact that had on a young child who grew up with nothing."
Nimbrethil certainly could imagine it, for she knew how hard village life was for people. How many would turn their backs on the opportunity to rise up out of that life? Not many in her experience, and she could see how for a child the temptation would be too great. "So I take it that is when you started learning the skills of a ranger?"
"Yeah, the captain was one himself, but he was more than just a ranger, he was an assasin as well," Bishop answered. "So over the next few years I trained and practiced. The punishments handed out for failure were severe enough that one worked even harder to excel. I won't go into the details for I wouldn't want you to have any more nightmares than you already do." He looked intently at her, one brow raised.
Nimbrethil saw the question in his eyes and nodded. "Fair enough, you finish your story and then I'll tell you mine, deal?"
"Deal. Finally, after eight years of working for Luskan, the captain said that I had proven my loyalty and was ready to take the final test for membership into that elite group, the assasins," he continued. "Some of the things they had me do to prove myself were, distasteful, to say the least," he growled. "But if you refused to do as they asked then they would either torture you into complying or kill you outright. I had seen it happen too many times to say no to anything they asked me to do. However, the final test went beyond what even I could stomach, and I started looking for a way out of the trap I had gotten myself into. I had to be careful though, for if I got caught then I would wish I was dead." He paused as the memories of what had happened almost overwhelmed him.
Nimbrethil said nothing, merely waited for him to get his thoughts together. She could see he was really reluctant so she prodded him. "What was the final test and how is my uncle involved?"
Taking a deep breath, Bishop continued the tale, his voice cold and flat. "The final test to become a member was that you had to destroy a village in Neverwinter territory by burning it to the ground. Leave no witnesses, that was the rule. I could pick any one I wanted to. This wasn't just a simple killing of an enemy of Luskan, something I had learned to deal with over time, even though I didn't like being ordered to do it. This was wholesale slaughter of a group of people for no good reason. I knew if I did that then I would lose what little identity and self respect I had left, which by that point in my life was very little indeed. Of course, they wouldn't just send me off and then take my word for it that it was done. They sent soldiers to watch me and make sure I didn't back out, and I don't have to tell you what their orders were if I tried to do so."
"Well, seeing as how you're standing here the plan you had was a good one," Nimbrethil said quietly. "But, I'm betting that it didn't go quite the way you expected it too."
"No, not quite," Bishop replied with a sneer. "You see I was skilled enough that I knew I could slip away from the watch dogs, for a little while at least. However, I knew that there was no way I could not go through with the burning of a village, not unless I wanted to die a slow and agonizing death. I'm no bleeding heart martyr like the paladin, dying for the cause and all that righteous bullshit. My only concern was escaping Luskan for good and going off on my own. I planned on warning the village I chose of what was going to happen so they could clear out before hand, if they were smart enough to listen. I knew that it would be difficult to convince total strangers of the truth, so I chose my own village as the target. Even though I despised most of those I had grown up with, there were a few that I liked well enough to warn them. My mother, though, was the only one I truly cared about, and I knew she would believe me. I figured that the others would also believe me because of that, and also because I used to live with them." He paused as the bitter memory washed over him, a reminder of why it was better to only worry about covering his own ass. Seeing Nim watching patiently, he continued before he lost his nerve. "Because we were in enemy territory, we had to be careful and not do anything until dark. The ones with me settled down to wait and started gambling. I sat by myself some distance from them and waited until I was sure they were distracted, then I snuck into the village. I told the villagers what was going to happen and they just stared at me like I had two heads. You see, because of the trouble I gave them in my childhood, they chose to think this was just another means of my taking them for a ride. They thought I was trying to scare them so I could get money from them."
"You mean they decided to stay in the village?" Nimbrethil asked incredulously. "Even though they knew you worked for Luskan and knew what Luskan was capable of, they decided to ignore your warning?"
"A couple of them believed me, my mother for one, and they left right away," Bishop nodded. "My father had been killed in a fight over a card game a year before so mom had no reason really to stay. However, to this day I don't know where she went or if she's still alive. I hope she was able to make a good life for herself elsewhere," he mused thoughtfully. "Anyway, the rest continued about their business and I didn't dare stay longer trying to convince them, so I went back to our camp and left them to their fate. Just as I got back, one of the soldiers looked up supsiciously at me. I pretended like I had just been out taking a piss and they relaxed again. Then I gathered the things I needed to set the fire and headed back to the village. I set everything so that the fire would form a perimeter and then accompanied the soldiers to the center of the village. When the people saw us they fled to their houses, thinking they'd be safe inside. The lead soldier told me to get started and I set the first house on fire and then one on the other side and so forth, all the while aware of the weapons trained on me to remind me what would happen if I didn't do as I was told. In the process I lit the fuel I had set to start the outer ring of fire, then I came back to the center of the village and waited. None of the soldiers saw the ring of flames that were beginning to encircle the village. It wasn't until the villagers came out of their homes screaming and trying to flee that they realized what I had done. In the confusion I managed to get away from the soldiers before they could kill me and headed for the spot where I knew the flames would be less intense. However, I miscalculated the amount of fuel I used and the gap that should have been there wasn't. I figured I was a dead man either way so I plunged through the flames and out of the village."
"That's how you got the burn scars," Nimbrethil whispered.
"Yeah, for though I managed to get through the flames, my clothes caught fire," he replied. "I didn't dare stop to try to put them out so I tried taking them off as I ran. Finally I collapsed to the ground in the forest some distance away, nearly unconscious from the pain and expecting to die there. That was when your uncle came along and found me. He must have seen the flames and come to investigate. When he found me he thought I was one of the villagers and helped me. He bandaged my wounds and got me into his wagon and then headed for Neverwinter so he could report the fire."
"He didn't know you were responsible for the fire did he?" she asked
"Not at the time no, but either I talked in my delirium or he put the pieces together from other sources," Bishop said bitterly. "Instead of turning me in like I thought he would, he told me he would give me a chance to redeem myself. Basically, he just wanted me in his debt for the rest of my life. I had managed to escape one trap only to fall into another one. So, now you know the truth about my ugly past and the debt I owe Duncan," he finished, a challenge in his voice that demanded to know what she intended to do with the knowledge.
"Well, that explains his attitude towards you," she shrugged. "If he can't understand that you were only doing what you had to in order to survive, that's his problem."
Bishop came to a dead stop and just stared at her, not quite believing his ears. "I just told you of how I was responsible for the death of an entire village and you're okay with it?"
"Technically you weren't responsible for it, you were just the tool used," Nimbrethil replied. "It was Luskan that put you in that situation in the first place. You even tried to save the villagers by warning them. That they decided not to heed your warning and stayed isn't your fault, it's theirs. If my uncle had had any real proof he would have turned you over to Neverwinter. As it is, I'm betting that he threatened to let it slip to Luskan in some way that you were still alive and that's what he holds over your head, am I right?" Seeing him nod, she continued. "If you expected me to be outraged or to tell you to get lost then perhaps you don't know me as well as you think you do."
"No, I guess I don't," he replied. He suddenly felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "So, I guess I still have the opportunity to correct that lack?"
Nimbrethil smiled at him and nodded before walking on. "I don't want you to worry about Duncan anymore. I will make sure he understands that your debt to him is over with and what will happen if he goes against me on this. I don't like anyone using something like this to force a person into doing their bidding for the rest of their lives. That's as much slavery as anything else and I won't tolerate it. Debts should eventually be considered as repaid and the person free to do what they want and go where they wish, regardless of past misdeeds."
They walked in silence for a while as Bishop tried to fathom her reaction. Finally he turned to her and stopped her. "Now, I believe it is your turn to tell me the big dark secret in your past that you've been hiding," Bishop said quietly. "Somehow I doubt it is worse than mine."
"No, not worse, but certainly not any easier to live with," she replied. She realized that they were very close to the city and she didn't want to run the risk of being overheard by anyone. "Let's move off the road and sit while I tell you," she told him and turned to the right.
Bishop followed her, still feeling a little light headed from the fact that she didn't hate him. He pinched himself to make sure this wasn't some kind of crazy dream. When she found a comfortable spot and sat down, he sat down opposite her so he could watch her. He was half afraid that if he took his eyes off her she would disappear. When she finally looked at him, he felt a chill run down his spine at the haunted look in her eyes.
"I am going to tell you about the first man I ever killed," she began. "I've never told anyone before, not even Daeghun, and after this I will never speak of it again."