Debtor's War Pt. 03

***

There was no finer sound on earth than monks singing. Maybe gypsies fiddling, I don't know, but that would not have comforted me. My other senses slowly returned. It was soft, my resting place, but too cold. The thick woolen blanket slid off as I struggled to sit up. Wan light bled through a narrow window. My body was still broken under the white linen shift, and as I watched my breath misting the air, pain forced me back onto the sheets. My skin smelled of juniper berries and lye. Fuck, I was angry. So angry. I forced myself to sit with a whimper of indignant pain. My left arm was heavily splinted, my shoulder felt like it was full of lead.

I cast around in the dim grey light for my belongings. A young monk stirred in the cot beside mine, then sat bolt upright as he saw me struggling.

"Frau Miller, steady! You'll fall!"

"Like fuck will I." My mouth was so dry. "Where are my clothes, brother?"

"Steady, steady!" He rushed to my side and took my 'good' arm. It was frail as a bird's wing. "You're freezing, I'll fetch you a gown."

"MY gown. My own. And my shoes and stockings. And a veil man, for pity's sake."

"Yes yes!" He grinned. "By the virgin, yes."

He scurried away, and I slumped back with a whimper. It was winter outside. The grey light dwindled away to almost nothing as night began to fall.

"How long?" I asked when he returned. Three months. He said I'd been with the brothers for three whole months. I was numb then. We'd have nothing to eat, nothing to feed the animals. What was Maggie thinking, the stupid sentimental fool. "I have to go home, I have to..." I cried then. Her dowry. My savings. All gone for the healing of a worthless old cunt that could barely sit up.

The poor lad didn't know what to do with himself. He set his candle down and stood wringing his hands as I wept. "Does it hurt so much? You started moving too quickly, here, drink this." He made me a little cup of bitter anodyne and I was in no condition to refuse him. Part of me needed to slip away into that warm oblivion. I turned onto my side and though it was uncomfortable at first, the pain eased as his wonderful drink took effect. My stomach cramped, and my teeth chattered but I didn't care.

The brother monk knelt beside me and held my hand as he prayed his psalter. He gave thanks for all the bounty of the earth. And then he dressed me like a doll. I felt so blissfully safe in his hands. I can't explain it, perhaps I don't need to. He gave comfort to me without expecting a single thing in return.

The clothes hung off me. Dimly I recalled my last pregnancy, and how futile my growing belly had felt. How it sapped the megre strength I had after that third failed harvest, until my bones threatened to split my skin.

"Forgive me, brother. I must go home. The lord knows how I will ever be able to pay for the care and kindness you've shown me already."

"Steady, woman, or you'll undo all our good work. Your son has paid for everything you might need, beg your pardon."

"My son?" I laughed, "but he couldn't..."

"No, my mistake, Frau Miller. Your daughter's husband isn't it? Herr Karl."

"You what!"

He laughed at me, the cheeky little bugger.

"Brother Cosmas."

At the sound of a woman's voice the lad sprang to attention. I could see him quaking in fear or anticipation. I craned my neck to see the speaker, but that corner of the room was cast in shadow.

"Let us behold the miracle the lord has wrought," she said.

As she stepped towards our island of candlelight, the barest hint of her beauty was cast in its gold. As she drew closer, her face, without artifice, was exquisite, the clean lines of her arched brows, the subtle rose of her lips, perfect to me, like a plaster saint come to life. Rosary beads of deep burgundy twisted between her slender fingers, her modest gown covered her from neck to heels but she was no nun. Her coal black hair was artfully bound up into braids and scallops covered with a sheer veil of Spanish lace.

Mighty dread chilled my heart because the body remembers everything. And I forgot Maggie. And I forgot my pain. I struggled to stand and pay my respects to this noble creature, and then fell down onto the rush covered floor like the ragged bundle of bones I was.

Eleanor gathered me up in her arms as though I were nothing but a child, laid me down, and sat beside me on the crude little cot.

"There is no need to stare so." Her eyes were always the most remarkable hazel green, like hypnotic gemstones.

Mortified to disobey, I couldn't bring myself to look away, nor could I speak a word. The fine wool of her gown was soft, weightless on my arm. I needed her to touch me again so badly.

She set the beads down beside the candle, "Brother Cosmas, see to the hours."

"Yes your grace," he stammered, and took flight, slamming the door behind him.

"Control yourself, Elizabeth."

"S... sorry." I summoned the will to make a show of demurely lowering my gaze.

"There was no need for your little outburst to brother Cosmas."

I held my breath and bit my lip. Maggie's husband. Maggie's husband Karl. Maggie's husband Karl paid them to take care of me? Or to 'take care' of me? No, that's madness. Why would they wait three months if they meant to harm me?

"You should know the happy couple have wasted no time making themselves at home, your daughter is already with child."

I looked up at her again, my heart in turmoil. Eleanor's face was as inscrutable as before. "My home?"

"Your home?" she echoed with no hint of mockery, "is still standing. You shall have no further need of it."

Those cold eyes watched me for an age looking for a reaction.

"Why?" The word stuck in my dry throat and came out as a whisper.

"Because you belong to me."

Her lips opened just enough for me to see her monstrous teeth. She took her time, slowly running the pad of her thumb across the sharp edge, before slipping that thumb into my mouth. I hadn't realised my mouth was already open. A steady trickle of her blood flooded my tongue, and to my dismay, I suckled, and to my delight, it felt so familiar, so natural, so essential that I moaned my appreciation.

"Sharp. Of course this is not the first time you have shared my strength. How else would you have survived being crushed like an insect?"

It had been years since the feeling of arousal shamed me. I felt my nipples stiffen against the fabric of my clothes, and my eyes widened in horror as she idly began to toy with the breast closest to her. Cold blood filled my mouth. I tasted everything she was, damnation, creation, need. As I sucked and swallowed my pulse began to throb between my legs. I opened my thighs in a vain effort to control the growing lust that would have me thrusting my hips and squirming my ass.

"I allow you to remember your oath, Elizabeth, I allow you your weaknesses." She gently molested my breast through my clothes, though I begged with my eyes for an end to this madness. "So long as our goals align, their interests are my interests. But if you should disappoint me..."

I gasped as she pinched the flesh of my breast with an inhuman strength. I forced myself to relax, forced my hands to open, spread wide in surrender as her blood flowed into me. I sobbed and heaved, I came. I came so damn hard for her.

"You have always been a clever girl."

*

There were moments in the following weeks that I looked back on that little exchange and dismantled it, analysed it, hoping for clues that might give me the true answer to my question. Then finding answers I was not ready for, Her words tortured me more thoroughly than any physical ordeal, their awful meanings multiplied like locusts. 'Because you belong to me... Because you have always belonged to me... Because I am weighing you in my hand and deciding whether to continue my investment or toss you aside like a worn out shoe'.

I clung to my own shabby clothes and well worn shoes as the last threads of my former life, but the promise of something unquantifiable swelled my heart and my lust. Brother Cosmas still watched over me but I didn't need washing and dressing anymore. My keeper's powerful blood had burned away my injuries leaving livid scars but full function and I was anything but numb.

My duty was to eat and move, move and eat, and repeat until some semblance of strength returned to my withered limbs. I begged him to pray with me. The lord's prayer had never been said with such fervour as I did. I have laid down events as I remember them, I was so fragile then. My poor addled mind struggled to reconcile this benevolent patroness with my carefully suppressed memories of the war. Something fundamental must have shifted in the world of shadows. Domains requalified, certainly, blood shed. How foolish I had been to assume I was free of it all. How naïve.

"Frau Miller, is something troubling your soul?" he asked. "Would it help if you knew the bishop himself came to anoint you in your agony, you are absolved of all sin. And your family thrives, it's true."

"Nothing is troubling me, Brother. I am content, and give thanks for a miracle I don't deserve. What will become of me now?"

"By the grace of God, you will come to understand," he said.