ONE NIGHT OF MERCY
It’s hard for me to describe that night – to describe what Ethalia did, and what she took from me. She had unleashed a pain inside me that was so deep it made the torture of the last several days feel like when a child touches a hot stove by mistake: the pain is hot, but it passes quickly. But this …
When we arrived at the temple, which I reminded myself was as good as a brothel, I was taken up to Ethalia’s private room. Aline had insisted on staying with the horse and they had been given a place behind the temple with enough space for the horse to feed and a bed for the girl to sleep in. Ethalia promised me that we could not be found here and, lacking the will to do anything else, I chose to trust her.
She told me to lie back in her bed. ‘I need a bath,’ I warned.
‘I will bathe you,’ she replied, motioning me to remove my coat. What was left of my clothes were torn and caked in blood, dirt and things fouler-smelling than those. With a small pair of scissors she began cutting my shirt off of me.
‘Stop,’ I said.
She pointed to a neat pile of clothing on a table near the door. ‘Those are for you,’ she said. ‘These rags no longer fit you, and the memories they carry are no sweeter than the smells they emit.’
I started to laugh, but she didn’t join me. Instead she kept cutting away at the fabric of my clothing, carefully moving her scissors along the seams until she’d removed my shirt and trousers, and even my boots fell apart at her ministrations.
She bade me lie back in her bed, naked and filthy, and went into the small room attached to her bedroom. When she returned she was carrying a basin and cloth. She set it down next to me on the bed. From another table she took a jar.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I know they used oils and ointments to bring pain, but I promise that these bring only healing.’
She began gently cleaning the wounds and washing the caked-on filth from my chest, my face, my legs and every part of me. It was a slow and painstaking process, and as gentle as she was it still hurt like the devil. The skin underneath the dirt and dried blood was sensitive, and in some places the wounds were infected, and all of these she tended to without comment. The ointment stung at first, but then provided blissful relief. When she was done I felt no pain, and I found the sensation almost unrecognisable.
‘It is not yet time for sleep,’ she said, as my eyes started to close.
I reopened them and looked at her. She had removed most but not all of the layers of thin gauzy fabric from her body and those which remained clung to her and, in the soft light of the moon coming through the window, revealed her body to me.
‘No,’ I said.
‘You are afraid,’ she said, without malice or hurt.
‘I …’ I realised I was afraid – but not of what she might think. What I was afraid of horrified me, and I was too ashamed to say it aloud.
She pushed me fully onto my back and gently straddled my hips. ‘You are afraid of the thing inside you,’ she said, letting the softness of her skin whisper to me. ‘You are afraid of the thing you found inside you that day that they took her from you.’
I tensed, and started to shift her off of me by trying to turn, but she pushed me back down. ‘You think you will harm me, Falcio. You think that if you let go, even for a moment, that the rage will come out of you and you will hurt me with your fists, with your violence.’
‘Ethalia … don’t,’ I said.
‘I do not fear you, Falcio val Mond. I know what is inside you. You have carried it for too long. It saved your life, and the lives of others, when you lacked the strength and the skill to defend yourself, but now you must let it go. You are strong now, you are powerful now, and it isn’t right to carry such a dark vessel in your heart. We must work it from its moorings, Falcio, and send it away.’
She moved her hips, ever so slightly, but the sensation felt like energy passing through every part of my body, removing my resistance, letting loose the chains I hadn’t admitted to myself were even there.
‘Please,’ I said, ‘please stop.’
She leaned forward and took my left arm, then reached behind the headboard. I felt her wrap something around my wrist. I tried to pull away, but I was caught tight. I started to move my other arm, but she had already shackled it.
‘Stop,’ I repeated.
‘I am not afraid, Falcio. I do not believe the violence inside your body is greater than the compassion in your mind, even when you are hurt and angry.’
She arose and went to the foot of the bed, producing another strap, this one attached to the floor. ‘But I cannot make you believe me, for you hate yourself too much to believe in your own truth. So I will bind you, and you can let out whatever rage is inside your heart and know that you won’t hurt me.’
She looked at me as if she was waiting for an answer, but I couldn’t speak. I felt nothing but shame at that moment, and no words would come out.
As if that were answer in itself, she returned to the bed and straddled me once more.
That part of me that always tries to be clever managed to break through. ‘This is likely to be—’
Ethalia put a finger on my lips. Then she began moving her hips again, slowly, gently. I made no movements in return, and we stayed like that for such a long time, I believe I fell asleep for minutes at a time. But somehow I found myself inside her, and still she just moved gently, back and forth. At times I thought I might start saying things, terrible things, but the soft movement of her hips seemed to quieten my voice. Other times I felt I was beginning to cry, but there too I was pulled back by the flow of her hips, and the feeling of her hands on my chest. How long we stayed like this I do not know; I remember only that the first probing of daylight pushed its way through the window before I spoke. My voice was so soft she had to ask me to repeat myself. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just wanted to make sure I heard myself say it.
‘The straps,’ I said. ‘Take off the straps.’
*
That morning was as unlike the days that had preceded it as anything you can imagine. I awoke again and the pain was gone from my wounds. Even more striking, the pain was gone from inside me. I’d like to say it stayed that way for ever, but I knew there would be more pain to come. But not yet, not just yet.
I heard the soft sound of singing and I looked over to see Ethalia standing near the far window, pouring something hot into a cup, then putting food onto a plate. She wore a simple summer dress this morning, blue and white, and looked completely unlike the ethereal mystery who had greeted me the night before. I found this version much more beautiful.
‘It is time to eat,’ she said, putting two plates and the drinks on a dark wooden board and bringing it over to the bed. She balanced it on a small table before sitting down beside me.
I drank from the cup. It turned out to be a mild herbal tea with hints of honey in it.
The food was simple, bread with jam and a wedge of cheese. I was about to say something clever about wanting an entire roast chicken when she shook her head. ‘What they’ve fed you, what they’ve done to you: it will not be well served with heavy foods. You must eat lightly, and carefully, for a little while at least.’
I nodded my agreement, but in truth I felt better than I had in such a long time that I had trouble finding the right words. I rubbed my hand across my jaw and was surprised to find no beard there. Somehow she had shaved my face while I slept.
‘Thank you,’ I said simply.
She smiled back at me. ‘Well done,’ she replied, as if I’d said something wildly ingenious.
We ate the rest of the meal in silence. But after we were done I felt compelled to speak.
‘The girl, where—?’
‘Running up the stairs as we speak, I suspect,’ Ethalia answered.
And right then there was an insistent pounding at the door and a voice calling, ‘Falcio – Falcio! Are you in there? They said I wasn’t to disturb you but I don’t believe them. Falcio! Are you hurt?’
Ethalia rose and unlatched the door. ‘He’s here, child. No need for concern or to break your hand on my door.’
Aline ignored her and raced to the bed. I managed to quickly get the sheets around me, having only just then remembered that I was naked.
‘Falcio! Are you all right?’
‘I’m well,’ I answered. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine. Monster’s fine too.’
‘Monster?’
‘The horse, silly. Are you sure you’re all right? You look dopey to me.’
‘I promise I’m fine.’
‘Good,’ she said more seriously. ‘We need to go soon, Falcio. The ceremony will begin in a couple of hours and we need to get there before the names are called.’
I was still unsure of the wisdom of this plan.
‘Go and wait downstairs, child,’ Ethalia said. ‘There is food there, and Falcio and I have some things to discuss yet.’
‘What kinds of things? Payment?’ Aline said wickedly as she strolled out the door and back down the stairs.
Ethalia closed the door and latched it again before coming back to sit on the bed. ‘The child is not entirely wrong,’ she said.
It wasn’t my place to question their ways, and Saints knew she had done more for me than I could ever pay for. But still it hurt. ‘I don’t have much money, but what I have is yours. What I do not have, I will find and bring to you, when I can. Name your price, Ethalia, and no matter its cost I will always be grateful.’
She leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. ‘Such wise and gracious words. It’s a wonder you aren’t a poet.’
I shrugged, trying to think of something witty to say. Nothing came.
‘You have asked, and so I will name my payment, dearest.’
I wondered if she called all those she helped ‘dearest’ in the morning. I hoped not.
‘My fee is this: there is an island off the Western Coast in the south, not far from Baern. It is a beautiful place, off the trade routes, untouched by conflict. There are plenty of fish, game birds, plants and berries to be found. The water from the streams is clear and clean, and the sunlight in the morning floats down through the trees by the beach like soft rain upon the sand.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘You want me to – what? Get you this island?’
She smiled. ‘Yes. I want this island. It is mine by right, the inheritance left me by my mother and father before I joined the Order.’
‘Then what—? I’m sorry, Ethalia, I don’t understand what you’re asking of me. If you already own the island …’
She leaned down and kissed me on the lips. ‘I want you,’ she said. ‘I want you to come with me. We will leave this place and take the southern trade route to the coast, where we will buy a small boat to take us to the island, and back to the mainland when we need a change of scenery.’
‘But, you’re a sister, of the Order …’
She smiled. ‘This has been the first part of my life, Falcio, and I honour it now by knowing when to leave it for the next. It was my destiny to await you here, to heal you and set you free. And now I have, and now I must go.’
‘And you want me to come with you? But Ethalia, you barely know me.’
‘Silly man. I know you very well. But I agree that you do not know as much about me. Do you believe me when I say you would like me once you did? That you would love me?’
‘I … I have no trouble believing that. I just—’
She looked at me with gentle eyes. ‘You have trouble believing we are destined to be together? Don’t you think it at all possible that you are meant to be happy, that I am meant to be happy, and that our happiness can be found together?’
‘I don’t know. Yesterday I would never have believed … But today … I just don’t know.’
She rose and put her hands on my chest and kissed me again. ‘Then I will have to know for both of us, for a little while at least.’ She kissed me again and we stayed like that for a long time, until I gently pushed her away.
‘I can’t,’ I said quietly, more to myself than her.
Ethalia took my hands. ‘We can bring Aline with us. There is no hope for her here, none out there either. Her father was a fool to think his mad plan would ever bear anything but bitter fruit.’
‘My friends, the Greatcoats … You don’t understand … My King gave me a command, and I must see it through.’
‘And what?’ she asked. ‘Find the King’s Charoites? You’ve nearly died how many times for your King?’
‘One less than he did for me,’ I said, more coldly than I had intended.
‘Falcio, listen to me. I have shown you that I know whereof I speak. There is nothing out there for you but pain, and hurt, and death. You have fought long and hard and the Gods, wherever they are, are grateful. They have guided me to you, and I am no small reward.’
‘I don’t want to be given a woman by the Gods like some copper goblet at a festival,’ I said pettishly.
‘And that is how you see me? As a thing you would rather earn than be given? As a whore?’
‘I didn’t say—’
‘I am a whore, Falcio, and proud of it. I whored myself to find out where you were kept when the news came of your capture; I whored myself to a sad, broken guard to find you mercy, and I whored myself again last night.’
‘The guard … the torturer. That was you?’
Of course it made sense. She had used her charms to win over the guard, that’s how she managed to visit me in the prison. That’s what had turned him.
‘I thought … I thought it was my words, what I’d said to him … I would never have asked you to …’
‘Foolish man. Of course your words helped change his heart, but so did my touch. Your wisdom opened his mind, and my body opened his heart. Sometimes that is the way of the world, and it is nothing I will be ashamed of, even if you insist on it for me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘For all of it.’
‘And again you cannot believe you are worthy of love,’ she said, turning away.
‘I—’ I reached out for her but she took a step away.
‘I cannot forsake the girl,’ I said. ‘Even if I give up on Kest and Brasti, on the King’s command, on all of it. The girl is determined to wait until the end of Ganath Kalila to preserve her family’s name and I cannot let her go alone.’
‘Say “will not”, Falcio, for you sound like a child when you pretend you have no say in the matter.’
‘I will not forsake her, Ethalia.’
She turned back to me and there were tears in her eyes. ‘Then you are just as broken as you were before, for you still believe you do not deserve love. You still believe you must fight and fight and fight until you are dead and only then, in that moment of release, will you set yourself free and reach for me. You are still wounded, Falcio, and thus owe me no payment. Go to your doom, and leave me to mine.’
And just like that, it was over. She sat on the chair by the window and cried softly while I put on the clothes she had set out for me on the table. I put on my greatcoat last, and never had it felt so heavy on my shoulders.
I spoke one last time, knowing it was foolish, but not able to stop myself. Ethalia was right, and so were Kest and Brasti. When we stood at the Rock of Rijou for the end of the Blood Week, the Duke would simply break his oath and send his soldiers to kill us then and there. I had come here not to win, but to die trying.
Still …
‘When it’s done,’ I said, and knelt at her side. ‘When the girl is safe, I will come back here, or wherever you are. If I do, will you have me then? Will you believe that I want happiness, that I want love?’
She turned and smiled sadly, one last time: a parting gift.
‘If you come back, I will be here. If you come back, I will say yes.’ It was the way she said it, her voice full of such resignation and sorrow, that left me convinced that I would never see her again.