Debtor's War Pt. 04

Our heroine fights to keep her humanity in the face of a ruthless embrace.

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I stayed at the hospital under the care of the Monks, there was no question of going home. I desired nothing but to prove my worth to Eleanor, my saviour and my destroyer.

Through Advent and Christmas tide, Brother Cosmas taught me my letters, and I couldn't get enough. I demanded to learn every alphabet he knew. Everything I read kindled the flame of my neglected intellect. I devoured books, without direction, without discipline, learned words in half a dozen different languages for happiness for fear, so many expressions for love. It took me longer to write something he could read.

Poor Brother Cosmas was bemused by my enthusiasm. I burned with passion, a childish desire to prove Her wrong about me. I needed no threats to life and limb to keep me compliant. I would prove myself worthy of Eleanor's affection beyond all doubt.

'Affection?' my rational mind demanded, 'What???'

But a bond of blood is entirely divorced from reason.

Eleanor soon shattered my illusions. On the eve of the epiphany she led me into the forbidden cloisters, and we passed by the monks unnoticed as a breath of air. I followed her through heavy doors, down countless steps, winding and narrow, until we came to a bare stone cellar that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Half the space was in full shadow. By the light of crude pitch torches I saw iron bars set from floor to ceiling. Two women were already caged in there.

I took in their very different appearances in the shadowed prison, and the confusion that must have been fixed on my face too.

"I thought the old slapper was dead," the bigger woman cackled.

I knew her voice at once. Eva Becker. The only woman in living memory unlucky enough to bury four husbands in four years. She'd been "disciplined" a dozen times for disrespecting the authorities, even came close to a public flogging. It was all a sham of course. She was another of the Bürgermeister's favourites.

That made me wonder how the smaller woman, Dara Feldman, Enzo's lawful wife, had ended up with her. She turned her face away from me as I stared. Dara was a fragile, mousy woman, who never raised her voice.

My undead mistress unfastened a heavy lock on the cage door and nodded for me to enter. Of course I did. A familiar numbness descended on my heart. Detached as I was, the longing to please her stood out as something imposed on my will, something alien.

The three of us stood and stared as Eleanor calmly refastened the lock.

"How long will you keep us here?" Eva demanded. I could hear fear colouring her bravado. Even wicked Eva must have known how helpless we were in the face of this creature.

The silence stretched out until it was broken by Dara's quiet sob.

Eleanor smiled, cold and perfect, it didn't reach her eyes. "I will ask you a question. Whoever answers correctly will earn the three of you a nice soft bed. What manner of room is this?"

"It's a prison!" Eva smacked her hand against the bars without flinching. "And we've done nothing wrong, you kept us here long enough!"

"Wrong." Eleanor's sweet smile broadened.

"A fucking bed? We won't play your sick game. What's the matter? Can't his lordship get it up anymore?"

The vampire didn't rise to the provocation. "Act the ape all you like, Eva. It is what we expect of you."

I scrutinized the chamber. On Eleanor's side of the bars was a simple chair, and what looked like a good quality chest. On our side there was nothing but us. The floor sloped gently down to a broad iron grate at the back of our cell, and it didn't smell like a toilet. The subtle smell that drifted up was sickly, rank as butcher's sweepings. There were scars in the stone work suggesting the room had been reconfigured, the mortar fixing the cage panels and door was fresh.

Above us in the shadows was a broad oak beam dotted with some sturdy ironwork, heavy duty rings and hooks. On the floor below was a broad strip of lighter coloured stone, as though it had once been covered with a stone trough perhaps? Or an altar of some kind? It was cruel to say it, to destroy all hope that playing along might save us.

Dara's efforts to remain stoic were increasingly futile and she whined like a whipped dog.

"Stupid cunt." Eva clipped the smaller woman around the ear and silence followed.

"I missed you, Eva." I faked a smile, and to my relief the mad woman returned it.

"You have any idea what this bitch wants to hear?" she said

"That I really have died and you're the devil?" I smirked.

The smile fixed on Eva's face.

"No," Eleanor cut in, "Disappointing."

I flinched to hear that word. I had to try to humour both the vampire and the monster she'd locked me in with, or everything...

"Dara," I said with measured calm, "is there something you want to say..."

She shook her head and whined. "We are all finished down here."

"Close enough," the vampire said. She opened the wooden chest beside her and pulled out a thin, rolled up mattress that looked like it belonged in a sultan's harem tent. It was red silk, covered in peacocks and other mythical beasts. She fed it through the bars and it slithered into a heap.

I pulled it flat, well away from the stinking grate. I sat on it with my back against the stone wall. There was no damp, though the stones were cold to touch. I traced the beautiful embroidery with my fingers. It was a work of art. It smelled of cedarwood and spices.

"Never mind the bloody mattress, what the fuck is this?" Eva was back banging on the bars. Dara skirted around her and knelt beside me on the wide bed.

"A test, nothing more," Eleanor smirked. With that, she settled herself on the wooden chair, arranged her voluminous skirts and folded her hands demurely on her lap.

Eva's self control was tenuous at the best of times. She kicked the bars with all her might, swung on the sturdy iron swearing and cursing us all.

I was struggling. I needed time to gather my thoughts, but the stream of vitriol from Eva's mouth was beginning to get on my nerves. It was a relief when she finally sank to her knees exhausted.

I shifted to one side, "Here," I said. "Nevermind her games. Sit with us. Rest."

"Are you out of your bloody mind?" She rounded on me and slapped my face before I could duck.

Dara was useless, curling her arms about her head, wailing in fear. I took Eva's back handed blow for what it was. Nothing personal. Just an expression of helplessness. I dragged Dara with me onto the cold flagstones and left Eva the bed for herself.

The madwoman glowered as she lay back on the silk. "Piss on you both. And that bitch. No-one fucking touches me!"

"You're not my type," I said, rubbing the sting out of my cheek.

Dara was looking at me, pleading with me not to aggravate things. I narrowed my eyes in response and scowled. Typical. I wasn't strong enough to fight fair with Eva, and no help would come from Dara. "Is your husband still alive?" I asked.

Dara nodded, her lip quivered as she spoke. "He found out about th...the boys," she sniffed. "I thought he'd kill me."

I raised a questioning eyebrow.

"It doesn't matter now. My sons weren't his. God help them."

I'd misjudged this woman. I'd assumed she was a timid coward, well under Enzo's control. Was she really as stupid and lustful as myself? "That's not the kind of man you cuckold and live!" I laughed.

"Well you did," she said softly.

"Oh no. My husband gathered all my children. Get that straight."

"Enzo wasn't able," Dara said a little more firmly. "We tried for years."

"I'm surprised his cock hadn't rotted off by then," Eva cackled, "dirty old bastard."

"It was his blood?" I looked over at Eleanor and she nodded the barest fraction. "In any case, how did he find out?"

"The joke's on her!" Eva crowed. "He never knew a thing. It was just a ruse to get her away and kidnap her. Stupid cow."

Dara showed the barest hint of temper at last. "All this time you let me think he'd gone after my children!"

"Is Enzo the only thing we have in common?" I said, "I can't picture him with you Eva. You'd be dead in an hour."

"Not as smart as you thought, are you?" Her eyes practically glowed as she rolled onto her belly and propped her chin in her hands. "He's helped me many times. Took care of things I had no patience for."

"Like your husband?" I watched the smile on her face broaden and bile rose in my throat.

"When he had an itch he needed to scratch," she sneered.

Enzo probably widowed Eva more than once. The distraction explained how gently he'd treated Dara and I lately. "And there was I, thinking he'd mellowed with age."

"We've been here for days," Dara sniveled. "No food. Barely any water. No sleep." She shot Eva a malevolent glance before continuing. "What happened to you?"

I shrugged. "Grain wagon landed on me." I pulled down one shoulder of my dress to show the livid scar across my back. "Still aches."

Eva whistled in appreciation, "They said you were dead."

"I am," I laughed. "All three of us have seen too much. We should make our peace with God." I knew what I had to do. I've always had a feel for Eleanor and her mind games.

Dara crossed herself three times the way easterners do when they see something unholy.

I felt sorry for her. Of the three of us, she seemed the least deserving of this cruel fate.

"Hypocrite," Eva spat at me. "You haven't set foot in church for years. Half the town calls you a witch."

Witch. Heh. I would have assumed whore... "Yet both you wholesome women are stuck here with me," I smiled. "Equally fucked."

Eva lifted the edge of the mattress over her face and groaned in frustration. I took my chance. My one chance. I built my momentum bounding three long silent steps and slammed the tip of my elbow into her core with all the force I could. I felt her ribs break, she made a puking sound as the air left her body. I rolled aside and as the red silk revealed her stunned face I swung my leg round and hammered the back of my wooden clog into her mouth. Her face caved in with a wet smack.

Dara's horrified wailing heightened in pitch, as I wrestled the stunned Eva into submission. I bundled her in the fabric and straddled her, face down. "It's nothing... personal," I said, wrapping the cordage of my girdle firmly around her throat, jerking it tighter and tighter.

She sighed her last bubbling breath, her bloody face turned purple and her eyes bulged. I wish I'd been strong enough to break her neck, but she was a thickset woman so it wasn't quick. I left her wrapped in the turkish mattress, but a foul smell still spread, for she had soiled herself.

Dara was babbling by then, cowering in one corner of the cell.

Out of breath, I sat in the opposite corner, one eye on her, one on the vampire. I earned another barely perceptible nod.

It took me a moment to register the change in Dara's tone. She wasn't begging me anymore, but our captor, on her knees, hands clasped in prayer, the foreign words were coloured by her hysteria.

"What was that you asked for?" The vampire smirked. "Mercy? A weapon? I confess my Ruthenian is poor. Perhaps in German so our friend can understand?"

"Give please... give her a blade please... mercy... not like that, not like that please God!"

I grit my teeth watched the pathetic stream of piss run from between Dara's knees to the grate at the back of the cell.

I must confess, I'd developed a visceral dread of being strangled by then. Between Enzo's games and my late husband's drunken behaviour.

"Dara," I said gently, "please don't. It was us or her, she would have..." I had to stop or weep, and I refused to shed a tear for wretched Eva. Murderous, feral, bully that she'd been.

"No nooo..." Dara sobbed. "Starved, or strangled, I can't bear it..." she tore at her hair.

"What will you do with our bodies?" I said to the vampire as respectfully as I could.

"Does it matter?" Eleanor asked.

"It matters to our families. Somewhere our children can mourn."

"That truly is a beautiful sentiment, child. But murdered bodies raise questions, empty graves even more so. Questions that must be silenced by men like Enzo."

Dara stopped sobbing with a gulp. "D... does he know about this?"

"He'd cut your throat himself for her reward," I said.

"You're two of a kind," Eva muttered. "The devil rides him."

"I will defend myself, so don't do anything stupid. My hands are going nowhere near your neck. Promise."

"Please God," she stammered. "I am sorry. Sorry for my part in all this."

I watched her. She blushed and drew her knees back up to her chest.

My hands were shaking. I folded them together with white knuckle grip.

"Have you been back in town long?" I asked.

"Few weeks. Since all souls."

"Any news?"

She looked at me with eyes like saucers, scared little rabbit. Shook her head. "Not big news. Enzo always wanting to winter here. Donau frozen but snow is gentle, and cold not too strong. Not like home." She sniffed. Shuffled awkwardly in her damp clothes.

"They say my daughter got married," I said. "Don't suppose you've seen her around?"

"I have. Young woman is spending money with handsome husband?" Dara smiled nervously at that. "Already blessed? I see these things first, you know? Already..." she gestured the shape of a round belly, "Very happy. She looks like you."

"Ha!" I shook my head. "I don't see it."

"Enzo crazy when he heard you died. Didn't eat or sleep, you know how he is. I always was jealous."

I smirked at that. Couldn't help it. "How did you do it? Survive, I mean?"

"I would never ask you that," she said solemnly, the colour rising again in her cheeks.

Ah, that old thing.

"I keep my mouth shut too," I said, "Most of the time. But I'm not ashamed of the things I've done for him."

"Then you must be shamed of nothing." She rolled her eyes.

"I am ashamed of a few things if I'm honest. Not what you'd think. But if I talk, you talk. Deal?"

Her stern face softened "We have plenty wine, Ne tak? And will not remember any stories tomorrow."

We sat quietly a little while longer. The cell was oppressive. The smell. The cold. My biggest regret in that moment was wasting our only bedding on wretched Eva's corpse. Dara must have felt it too with her wet clothes.

It was surreal, all of it, trying to muster up enough hatred for that harmless woman. I could not. Perhaps I could drive her to hate me?

"Alright. Here goes. My older boy was too hungry, and I was exhausted feeding him all night, so we hired a nursemaid. A wet nurse, yes?"

"I know it."

"I fucked her."

"Matir Bozha!" Dara swore.

Eleanor laughed. I'd never heard it before, it was utterly out of keeping with her cruel facade.

"Oh, I'm not ashamed of that," I continued. "I never forced myself on her. She was an absolute joy, she would do anything to make me come."

"That's terrible."

"No. Not at all. She was very sweet. My shame was my husband. He made so many stupid decisions it's not even... So we had nothing to fall back on when we had that run of bad harvests. I should have married a woman."

"A woman?" There was nothing like hatred in Dara. Disbelief? Scandal? Amusement perhaps?

"And what? Go ahead and report me to the gendarmes. I can't wait to hear your secrets. 'Oh! I found a Florin and I kept it!'" I chuckled, "'The market trader winked at me and gave me an extra beet!' This isn't a fair trade by the way."

"Well you could not stop your husband more than I could stop mine. And those years was hard for everyone."

"I'll drink to that," I said.

"You know we both die today," Dara sniffed. "Or you never would tell me that. You not scared?"

"I've been hell bound my whole life."

"You killed people before."

"Yeah. I have."

She cowered as I stood and pulled off my outer dress, I was still decent enough with my chemise and such. I held out the soft woolen gown to her.

"I'll turn around. Change out of your wet things." I tossed it to her, and moved back to the other side of the cell. I knelt and crossed my arms around the bars. "There. I trust you not to kick my head in. Sort yourself out."

As I knelt, I couldn't help watching Eleanor. There was a distance in her eyes. I remembered that first surreal night in the Bürgermeisterin's rooms. I wondered what happened in the years since. Where was her prince while she was baiting us? And I thought about hell. I looked into that yawning abyss and acknowledged the absence of it, and of any reward for the righteous.

"I... am ready," Dara stammered.

"Can I turn around?"

"Please."

She had thrown her soiled skirts over Eva's body, and she was wearing my gown. It hung off her hips and trailed on the ground.

"Here." She let me stand behind her and adjust the fit.

"Thank you. Truly."

I sat, and Dara settled down next to me. The torches flickered, dimmer than they had been. It was cold in that cell, she hadn't slept properly for days. She curled up beside me with her head on my shoulder and took my hand. I couldn't imagine her finding the courage to deceive Enzo.

"Who was really their... Was it someone you know well, or..."

"Very well. Neighbour in Lviv. Because he has family of his own, it was a good secret. I should have seen the lie."

"You couldn't take that chance. Imagine." I shivered in sympathy.

Eleanor was staring again, more focused than before. I tried not to stare back.

"Any regrets?" I said softly to Dara. "Any unfinished business?"

My cell mate shook her head. Gripped my hand a little tighter. "God forgive me, too many things."

"Then we'll pray for that," I said.

Just like all those times I'd held the host on my filthy tongue. All those times I'd knelt, humble, and offered my mouth for the relief of others, I spoke the words sincerely, I always did. The way you might wish on a star though you know full well it's a ball of gas a billion miles away. It was some comfort to me, and it seemed to give Dara peace. I held her hand until her breathing slowed, and her body finally relaxed. She drifted off with her own prayer on her lips, and my pater noster tailed away into silence.

I considered every object in our cell. Nothing heavy enough, nothing sharp enough, nothing poisonous, nothing.

The chill seeped from the stones through my meager linens. I can't say I knew what was in store for me, but I had some insight then. To Eleanor, I was nothing but a useful object that Lugoz once dropped in her pocket. For a time, during my lessons with Brother Cosmas, I had felt she was preparing me for higher things. Perhaps that's what this was, I reasoned. More of the same. A metamorphosis from crude tool into what? Something like her? Something like Enzo?

Something like her. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became. She would have me destroy these women, the act would destroy some human quality in me that she needed to extinguish. Though I had attacked Eva to preserve myself without hesitation, I balked at doing the same to Dara now I knew what it meant. To destroy the human part of myself.

"Please give me a blade, your grace," I said quietly.

Eleanor seemed to consider my request, though she didn't answer.

"Please?"

"And if it is my will to see her suffer?" the vampire said.

The unfairness of her words stung. The desire I felt twisted, I would cut out my own heart to please her, what did Dara matter?

"You already had me, don't you see? Without any of this."

"Then it must be for some other purpose, Elizabeth. Or I am wasting my time."

The exhausted woman asleep on my shoulder breathed slowly, deeply. Every kill I'd made before had been for my own good reasons. I cared nothing for Enzo's wife.

"She is weak," I hissed, unable to contain my frustration any longer, "a harmless innocent, that never so much as raised her voice to me in anger."