Saadet
At the best of times the Covenant was too sprawling to keep illuminated at night, with more sparsely occupied sections abandoned to their dark fates even while the sun shone. Intrepid then, might be described any venturing along what would in other circumstances be seen as a thoroughly mundane, plain walkway. Yet far from any heroes of old were the figure and the flame, for they scurried along as much as they sallied forth. The minute fire, quivering in fear of the monstrous shadows it cast, was far too meek to do battle with the gloom. The lamp it cowered in, carved from soapstone and somewhat lumpy in appearance, was far older than both its bearer and the hallway through which she stepped.
With regards to heroism, at that midnight moment what courage burned within her was scarce improvement over the flame. Shoes did little to keep the chill from her soles as she softly tread down the dim passageway, but that was not the only source of her shivers. She was eager to reach her destination, but a subliminal hesitation checked her haste; resulting in a pace which was stately in speed but lacked all the associated elegance of posture and movement.
Yet due acknowledgment should be accorded to those who, while lacking in bravado, leave their beds unforced and alone to walk a Stygian path. A path uncharted where the dead come into sight at the edge of the light’s dim glower. Dead men, little different in appearance than one just then slain on the battlefield. Perhaps, had daylight permeated the arcade, the lack of fresh spilt blood and cloth wrapped eyes of the eyeless watchmen might have dispelled this recently murdered impression. As it was, she half expected the guards to collapse at her feet.
Still as statues they stood, and it was she that trembled before them. An overcast sky had masked her transition from tunnel to open air, but sly and silent winds ruffled her hem and snatched away her flame. It was not, however, in complete darkness that she stood before the door, for feeble light leaked out from the threshold. Wary of the Hadesean guards she stood upon the outer edge of the arcade, heels creased on the lip of stone that separated the walkway from the courtyard. Little more than the mail-sheathed feet of the dead could now be beheld, and the sightlessness which had troubled her all the journey now gave her a measure of comfort.
Ignoring the dead, they likewise ignored her as she stepped forward to place her hand upon the door. She paused, neither pushing nor pulling. Her hand had not needed to move to feel the cold iron lock. A lock which she had seen many times before, though in all her life she had never seen the key. Sometimes the lock was latched shut, other times there was a small gap. During the day it was a simple matter to check with a passing glance, but at night she never knew until her hand was placed upon it.
There were few locks in the Covenant. What need was there of them? The Magi had no reason to secure their valuables with simple pieces of metal. There was no human alive in the Covenant who would dare intrude upon the privacy of a Magi's rooms or chests when not permitted. They would never steal from a Magi. Not only from a solid confidence that they would be quickly punished, but also from a intense lack of want to possess anything to do with them or their "Arts".
The dead rarely had any impetus to steal or trespass. The inhuman likewise were either little motivated or little hindered by such securities. In the rare instances it was felt to be necessary, the Magi had far worse wards to safeguard their property from spectral or fey intruders than a hunk of blacksmithing.
But this door had a lock.
The modest wooden barrier was as impregnable to her as the main gate to invaders. She looked at the guards, who had yet to acknowledge her presence in any way. She gazed back along the arcade towards the blackness of the passage she had come from. Her fire was gone, and she had no method of restoring it. She struggled to accept an endless groping stumble to her own resting place. It felt in her heart that such a effort would surely bring her to her final resting place.
A voice, or perhaps voices, leaked out from the doorway along with the glimmer. Feminine, but unintelligible to the slim eavesdropper outside. Like the voices she had heard others say spoke from shells. Something which felt so far away, even when she leaned against the door forlornly. It was the siren song she heard faintly now that had enticed her here to begin with.
Shouting! Rapidly rising clamor that peaked near hysterical shrieking! The words in a language she did not understand, something clipped and harsh sounding; though perhaps that was the slicing tone which spoke them more than intrinsic to the tongue. Wooden banging giving accompaniment like a troupe of the Devil's musicians egging the singer to greater wrath. An object hurled against the wall, pounding upon what sounded like a table or bed, rage filled cries flung like hailstones through the air. The low light which fled from the fury flickered uncertainly, perhaps as a figure paced erratically back and forth across the room. If there had been voices before, only one remained; twisted and warped beyond personal recognition or identity by the ugly screaming rant.
She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, sheltering against the door as if the storm came from beyond the arcade's cover rather than beneath it. Curled, her uneasy rocking resulting in her back touching the leg of a dead guard. She jerked away, but he flinched not at her gentle bump. Nor did he or his fellow appear perturbed by the sounds behind them. She felt then glad she could not understand the howling tirade, though it had for unknown reasons evoked within her trickling tears.
The awful cacophony ended even swifter than it began. A sudden doleful silence, with none of the sobs or smoldering mutterings that accompany a lovers' argument or nobles' feud. No shattered bowls being swept up, no rearranging of scattered furniture, no receding stomps. Nothing, a emptiness of sense little different from the void of black around her. With time, whose length must remain a mystery, she stood delicately and faced once more the dread portal.
She spoke. Spoke softly a single word for which there exists no single word to truly describe the quintessence of its sound. A sound like a fawn, nervously calling for the doe separated from it by the wolves in winter. A sound like a dozen questions twined into ribbon. Are you there? May I come in? Can you hear me? Will you help me? A sound of hope unextinguished. Of desire desperate to be soothed. Of curiosity and fear and dreams half forgotten. A sound which, though she did not know it, was heard by many.
"Fjörleif?"
The nothingness which replied was heavier than any sodden laundry basket or stinging mother's slap of rebuke. Her fingers dragged light and slow down the rough wood of the door. She stared at the rectangle of unlit black as if she might conjure light to see from pure will. Stared as if she might, if only she truly looked, see through this seal to a greater truth beyond it. When her eyes began to water from the strain and emotion both she tore herself away. Twisting with the full-body wrench one might affect when recoiling from the unexpected sight of a beloved dog slaughtered by your hearth.
She stumbled forward some steps, falling against an unfriendly pillar of stone which supported the arcade. She lifted her face towards the obscured heavens and breathed in raggedly. Yet before she could release the loaded wail of despair, she was arrested by the voice which spoke softly behind her?
"Saadet?"
Her chocked off cry made her cough unattractively, yet felicity filled her heart as she turned. Light, though surely little more than a few candle’s worth, seemed by comparison to blaze out through the door which now bordered a woman's silhouette. Though the lady was, in fact, shorter than her visitor she cast a giant’s shadow across the young woman embarrassedly wiping her face and standing before her room. The dead cast larger shadows still.
Saadet stooped to pick up the lamp she had dropped earlier, its oil spilled but its rugged contours uncracked. She noticed as she was bent that Fjörleif was wearing a lovely pair of soft leather boots. Indeed, she was in fact very well dressed from feet to face, with a surplus of jewelry scattered about as accessory. Saadet winced then, uncomfortably conscious of her own unsubtle sleepwear.
Fjörleif gazed upon her quizzically, then looked beyond at the starless sky, before speaking.
"Why are you awake at night?"
Saadet was taken aback, for she had rehearsed ad nauseam in her mind her answers to Fjörleif's expected questions. This query was not among them, but after a moment’s hesitation Saadet decided to use her practiced response regardless.
"You invited me."
She hoped her voice did not convey the twinge of guilt she felt at the lie. Fjörleif had said she was welcome... indirectly. That such an implied invitation did not specify this particular night did not, innately, say this night was forbidden. Beyond such contortions, Saadet hoped in her heart that if Fjörleif understood the agony and desperation haunting Saadet, she would forgive her this small deception.
"Oh. Forgive me, I did not recall. I am sorry to have disrupted your rest, would you like to sit?"
Saadet nodded, and the two women padded into Fjörleif's chamber. Fjörleif stepped aside upon entering and, after Saadet turned to squeeze past her, she shut the door and bolted it. They continued a few steps, to hook around the impromptu corridor of sorts Fjörleif had made using a screen and the stone wall. Saadet blinked as she rounded the far end of the screen, for a number of candles and small oil lamps stood upon a wooden table. The dim glow which had leaked through the doorway she now realized was due to the screen and other obstacles blocking most of this brightness from the doorway.
Saadet had been in Fjörleif's chamber numerous times before yet each foray within she marveled at the richness of the decor, which was juxtaposed against the military rudeness of the structure and unexpectedly unrefined objects within. Fjörleif's little domain had never been intended for human dwelling, being in fact the ground level of the largest tower along the Covenant’s main outer wall. As such it was surprisingly spacious in area, yet lacked windows of any sort and had a low ceiling.
Fortunately Saadet was not particularly tall and thus not forced to stoop. Still, traces of smoke stung her eyes and she was relieved to sit upon one of Fjörleif’s low seats. She had a pair of them, which were unlike any other stool or chair in the Covenant. They were, essentially, two planks, one longer than the other and fitted together through a slot in the larger into a lopsided "X". While Saadet appreciated that they could be separated into two flat boards, thus easily moved or stored, Fjörleif rarely seemed to do this and Saadet privately wondered why she had not opted for somewhat more comfortable seating easily available to her.
Much the same sentiment could be directed at the room overall. Though approximately square, Fjörleif treated her space almost as though it were a rectangle. With a slim collapsible table, a narrow bed, and complete lack of any shelves, closets, or wardrobes the room was sparse of furniture. Furthermore, she shunned the corners of the tower and had erected more standalone screens along the floor to either side.
Saadet had been struck dumb by these humble aesthetics, for it was clear even to a stranger that Fjörleif was openly covetous and craved finery. She was enamored with amber, silk, silver, ivory, and furs. An enormous and luxurious white bearskin lay upon her crude bed of straw and stiff planks. She possessed, among other decorations, an exquisitely carved walrus tusk which she kept wrapped in scrap linen and never on display.
The distinctive sound of a bottle being opened jolted Saadet from her musings. Fjörleif had reclined in the other seat with a dusty green bottle and a brilliant drinking horn. Rimmed and tipped with what Saadet's inexperienced eye assumed to be gold, it seemed altogether too fine a vessel for the contents of such a disreputable looking bottle. Saadet knew better though, than to be fooled by appearances. She had tasted the pale orange liquid Fjörleif filled the horn with to the very cusp of spilling.
Fjörleif was, so far as Saadet was aware, the singular servant in the entire Covenant allowed to drink whenever she wanted. A liberty she exercised routinely and to exhaustion. The contents of the horn in Fjörleif's white-knuckled grip would by its conclusion render Saadet delusionally delirious or outright unconscious, depending on the particulars of Fjörleif's varied batches. Fjörleif sipped it with ease, for she drank what seemed to be every day and had no apparent compunctions regarding the leaden sleep it might induce.
Saadet knew not what hour the monks were tolling, but were the night mere half passed she still would not have much time. That Fjörleif had started drinking without offering Saadet any beforehand and without making any sort of toast signaled that she was feeling troubled or upset, though her demeanor was outwardly still as a frozen pond. She would, if past experience was a pattern, drink until unable to speak or move with a sort of stoic directness divorced from the slow tide-like consumption of social revelry.
Saadet stirred herself to speak, but as her lips just began to part Fjörleif spoke first.
"Do you like this bottle? It is the first I’ve made with honey from this hive."
"I’m sorry, but I do not know its taste."
"Oh, my sincere apologies. Please forgive my rudeness, I have failed to honor you properly as a good host."
She leaned forward and stretched her arm towards Saadet, who was momentarily awed that such an ungainly lean and gesture was accomplished without spilling a drop.
"I shouldn't, my mother expects me to help her with some tasks early tomorrow morning."
"I see. Perhaps it is for the best, for I have not reached a judgment on the merits of this bottle. I discovered a new hive to the west, past that little ravine but before the leafy trees outnumber the pines."
Saadet had never been that far into the forest in that direction. Still, she had the vague understanding that the area Fjörleif was describing did not have any proper paths or trails and would take at least two hours to reach if not more. Even if the Magi allowed her to go such a distance away, she would struggle to find enough spare time between her responsibilities to journey there and back before nightfall. What could possibly prompt Fjörleif to such a remote area? Surely not a beehive she had not yet known was there...
"Why wer..."
The question welling up from her throat deflated barely after it had begun, like dough erroneously mixed. She had not crept past her sleeping mother to talk of bees. Though the temptation to do so was strong. Not because Saadet had any particular interest in apiary or brewing, but rather the frivolity of it all. Fjörleif spoke to Saadet not like a child or a slave, as other women in the Covenant did. Nor did she have an awkward aversion to her the way the Covenant’s men displayed. Fjörleif never once asked if the lesser kitchen floor had been swept. Fjörleif never scolded her for bruising a pear which rolled off the bench.
Saadet was no moon-eyed calf however, and knew that Fjörleif's casual chatting was not because she viewed Saadet as a peer or sister. In truth, she asked nothing about Saadet’s chores or tribulations because she likely did not know or care what Saadet did on any given day. At times, she looked upon Saadet’s face as though she was confronted by a complete stranger. And gazing back into her staggering eyes, Saadet wondered if strangers they might forever be.
Years had passed, though not so many as to require both hands, yet Saadet still knew so little about her supposed confidante. It had taken weeks before she even knew the strange woman's name and months before they first spoke. Saadet had never forgotten this opening exchange, its simplicity notwithstanding. Fjörleif had been standing by a rear gate looking upon the Covenant’s wheat fields, and suddenly spoke out as Saadet was bustling past.
"What day of the week is it?"
Saadet had been so startled she dropped what she was carrying and common sense fled her mind like disturbed birds. Gaping blankly for a moment, she struggled to remember before stammering out that is was either Wednesday or Thursday.
"I see. Pity, I have always preferred Mondays and Fridays."
With which she returned to her survey of the farms and paid little heed to Saadet as she gathered up the contents of her basket and rushed off. It had been a trying period; for two separate servants had killed themselves, apparently for different reasons, in less than a fortnight. One going so far as to murder two others beforehand. A couple of these lost servants had overlapping responsibilities with Saadat. For weeks until they returned, somewhat, to their duties Saadet had little time or energy to spare.
By day this excuse sufficed for why the two did not speak. By night was a different story. Saadet could not stop the vignette replaying in her dreams. The simple exchange, word for word by the same gate. Yet the season changed. The weather, the time of day. The clothing each woman wore, the burden that Saadet dropped. Different but still repetitive.
Then the dreams became stranger. It was Saadet who spoke first. It was Saadet who spoke last. To a reflection of herself. To her mother. To the Magi, to Fjörleif. It was not days they spoke of, but names. Directions. Dinner.
Then the dreams became nightmares. Her dropped laundry was a malformed baby. The dead asked her questions. Saadet was the dead one, unable to speak and answer the questions of angels. She was naked, starving, pathetically crawling towards the farm fields beyond the gate. Fjörleif asked if she was hungry. Saadet gasped that it was Judgment Day.
She wallowed in a nightly maelstrom of chaos and confusion. Visions tormenting her with their uncertainty and unknown omens. It ravaged her for weeks, until finally Saadet intentionally sought out Fjörleif and broke down sobbing in front of her. She offered no comforting hand or gesture, but with vague sympathy she slowly asked if they had met before. The dreams stopped after that, but Saadet still acted out the scene in her waking mind to this day.
Did Fjörleif dream of their encounter? Did she have nightmares? Did she ever have either, drenched in the icy water of her frozen drunkenness? Did the mead give her dreams, or did it dispel them? Did the dreams and nightmares of bees dwell within the liquid? Why did she drink it... Why only mead and never wine or ale?
Why, at times, did Saadet crave to drink the honey? Why, at other times, did she fear it?
Fjörleif, apparently deep in her own thoughts, lowered the smooth rim of the horn from her lips somewhat too quickly. A tiny trickle of droplets, not even enough sparkles to form a constellation, fell towards the earth. Fjörleif noticed however, and jerked the horn away from her as her other hand sped to catch the dribble. Though a bit sloshed over the edge of the horn to lick her fingers, the other hand prevented anything from touching her clothes.
Saadet thought it fortunate that Fjörleif was so quick with her hands. She did not know how well such a potent brew would wash from so fine a garment. That cyclas in particular Saadet had never seen or cleaned before. It looked to be made of silk... The long draping tabard obscured somewhat the dress beneath it, but nothing could fully hide the quality of everything she wore. The hose below it hugged her calves fetchingly. The mantle above it was of ermine fur with silver clasp. The belt cinching it to her waist was black leather lacking even a single crack or crackled span. A large pearl dangled from a thin silver chain, entwined with ribbon, which almost reached her navel.
Though she handled clothes daily, a feeling of nervous hesitancy swept Saadet whenever tasked with washing Fjörleif's exquisite garments. They were vastly more delicate and valuable than the competently tailored but uninspired clothes created by and worn by other women in the Covenant.
It was not by edict of the Magi, for they cared nothing about what their servants draped themselves in. The quartermaster did his best to supply bolts of cloth, or tread and needles. As the Covenant was not suited to the keeping of sheep or growing of flax, spindles and wheels were rare within the complex. Yet looms were maintained, and embroidery hoops close at hand.
What separated Fjörleif from the others was the vast amounts of idle time she did not spend consumed with chores and other work. She went significantly out of her way to acquire a variety of dyes. She bought, or was gifted by those who feared the Magi's representative, reams of imported silk and cotton. She embellished her attire with semi-precious stones and animal furs and other ornamentation acquired on her own accord. All this gleaned using private funds she collected by selling her own creations to the nobility through a series of heavily-bribed intermediaries used to obscure where the fashionable creations originated.
She then spent endless hours in a lethargic daze, eyes unfocused but fingers darting swift and sure across her huge loom or personal embroidery hoops. She used a simple set of needles, but wrote fabrical poetry with ink of vibrant colors. The screens she pointlessly constricted her room with were actually made by her own hand. Great blocks of sand colored fabric, stretched upon a wooden frame and covered in scenes of nature. Trees, animals, shorelines, rendered in such minute detail that it was impossible to appreciate in the sunless room of stone they decorated. Each was likely worth a small fortune, yet Saadet needed to hold a flame dangerously close to them just to witness their splendor.
Her clothing was no less enlivened by her needlework. The cyclas which had just escaped a drip was an excellent display of Fjörleif's ability. It was blue, which was Fjörleif's general favorite. Perhaps not truly blue but somewhat green, though either way it appeared close to black in places not at the forefront in such dim candlelight. What was remarkable though was the fish Fjörleif had cleverly sewn across it's seams and folds. The fish were made with silver-gilt thread. The river reeds in green and yellow silk. The ripples in white.
The fish were so tightly and patiently stitched that species could be discerned. Herring. Salmon. Trout. They were not a dead lineup of repeating pattern, but seemed to leap from the water and frolic among the reeds as Fjörleif shifted or stretched. Saadet, as she gazed upon their design, knew that even if she obsessively practiced from dawn to dusk every day for a year she would never be able to replicate it. She wondered if even Magi Sophia, who refused to wear any color other than black, would be tempted by this outerwear. And yet, Saadet suspected that all of the other layers Fjörleif was wearing beneath the cyclas were only a step less in needlework.
Saadet plucked her chemise away from her knee, rubbing it between her fingers. Her clothing fit well. She had been delighted when her mother gifted her a new dress for Yule past with lavender flowers embroidered along the hem of all four openings. Everyone had complimented her as she twirled to show it off, including Fjörleif. Saadet was secretly judgmental of other servants who did not maintain their garments as fastidiously as she did hers, hiding any rips with subtle stitch repairs. Though not her finest attire, even this simple chemise was respectable and clean.
She felt though at that moment that the rag she wore was fit for nothing but the swaddling of a shitting babe. Which snapped the thread she had been spinning in her mind, reminding her that as she mused to herself Fjörleif was content to leave her be and focus on her horn. Saadet shook her head to clear her thoughts. She did not venture here to talk of fashion. She came to talk of bees. No... She had wanted to talk of something more important, which her chemise "rag" dredged back to her attention.
"Fjörleif, do you want to have children?"
"I have several children."
"Oh... Really?"
Saadet was the youngest person in the Covenant, so far as she was aware. Children were generally not welcome as visitors, and only the worst of mothers would fail to leave an infant on the stoop of a church before seeking "sanctuary" within. In the eyes of most of the Covenant's female servants, the Godly thing would be to strangle your own newborn rather than allow it to grow up alongside Saadet. A belief which Saadet found somewhat hurtful, even as she half-heartedly agreed. She certainly had never seen Fjörleif with a motherly belly or heard an infant's giggle out of sight.
"Of course... I am filled with milk and sperm in equal measure."
"I, um... That's lovely Fjörleif. May I... hold one of your children? Or if they have grown some, maybe brush their hair."
"No... Or maybe... if you went to where they live... perhaps you could. But you can not here, because you are here and they are not here. They do not live... here. They live with our father."
"Our, I mean, their father... Why... um... do they not live with you?"
"Because I am here. Because I am filled with milk and sperm... So Jesus takes all my babies away."
"I'm so sorry Fjörleif... I... hope you see them soo-ah... someday."
Fjörleif was never particularly clear at the best of times, and by now Saadet knew she was feeling the effects of her drink. It was a struggle, but Saadet tried to dwell more on the themes of what Fjörleif said than on any one statement. There was, though it it winded like a shallow creek, a course Saadet was attempting to hew to. She worried that if she rushed Fjörleif she would careen past Saadet's desires. Yet if Saadet lingered, the fragile stream might dry up or vanish underground.
As she strategized on what to say, she was startled by Fjörleif speaking of her own accord.
"Do you have any children?"
"Me? No... no, no no. Not... yet at least."
"Do you want one?"
Saadet had a brief moment of concern that Fjörleif was offering up one of her own, before realizing what she had meant.
"I... think so... I mean yes, yes I want children to love and hold. But I don't want my child to suffer. I don't want them to live like I have lived, shunned and in fear and bound to servitude. So I... don't know if I should have any."
"You can just get pregnant and let the father decide. If it is wrong, Jesus will take your baby away."
"I... suppose we should trust in the Lord's designs... But it does not matter, does it? You speak of babies and motherhood without explaining who the father would be."
"Does it matter?"
"Yes! It, I mean he, I mean... Yes, fathers matter to me."
"Alright. Then Matthias can be the father."
Matthias...
Saadet had dreaded mention of his name. Wondering not if, but when Fjörleif's mind would return to him, as it always did when she drank and often when she didn't. Matthias was... something different to Fjörleif than to others in the Covenant. To them, Saadet included, he was... well, not actively dangerous. That is, he had never done any harm to Saadet. In fact, he had only spoken to her a handful of times in all her life, and such exchanges were only on mundane concerns or questions.
Yet Saadet feared him. Feared him more than any other in the Covenant aside from the Magi. He did not have The Gift, that much she was certain of. The horrible feelings which bubbled up while in the physical presence of the Magi were unmistakable and unforgettable. Still, Matthias invoked in Saadet a sense of... something akin to doom. She became conscious of every breath, could feel every pulse in her chest and wrists and throat. He made her think of death. Her death. The death of her mother. His death.
He was often away from the Covenant. Yet he left and returned with no fanfare or warning, leaving Saadet forever hesitant in the vicinity of his chamber. He did not look ugly or unclean, yet Saadet felt as if his shadow was somehow a deeper darkness than her own. She struggled to meet his gaze or speak louder than a whisper before him. And at times, when he was departing or just returned, the quiet jangling of his weapons stalked her nightmares for days after.
Fjörleif though, was inexplicably fond of him. She became unusually energetic upon discovering he had returned. In turn, whenever he left she became sullen and unfriendly for an indeterminate but significant amount of time. Fjörleif would go so far as to sleep in his bed whenever he was gone from the Covenant for more than a fortnight. And yet the two did not outwardly appear to be close.
From Saadet's perspective, Fjörleif rarely spoke with Matthias, and certainly did not spend continuous hours of leisure in his presence. She was almost... shy? Timid in a manner which she never displayed with anyone else, certainly not other men whom she affected a regal dismissiveness towards. These quirks were plain to see to all who dwelt within the Covenant, but as most feared Fjörleif as much or outright more than they feared Matthias the cause was little investigated.
Only Saadet, and of course the Magi, ever saw behind the elegant etiquette and courtly demeanor which typically defined Fjörleif. Here, in this chamber, Saadet had been first exposed to Fjörleif's slippery honey-laden tongue. A tongue which spoke of Matthias not as a reaper or black lurker, not as a confidante to devil-worshipers and pagans, not as a blood dripping beast of violence and devastation.
She spoke of him as a hero. A noble, gallant, handsome, courageous guardian who humbly yet valiantly protected her from all evils. She spoke of him as a friend, a teacher, and a passionate lover. Particularly the latter, the more she drank...
"Um... I am not sure Matthias is... interested in being a father."
"Matthias already is a father. We have many children."
Words spoken immediately preceding and following a long sip from her horn.
"Yes, I am so happy for you both. But perhaps he is not... available."
"Silly Saaaaadet. Of course he is available. Matthias is always available. I sleep with him and beside him every night. He will, I tell you, be home soon and join us right here at this table."
Matthias had been away for at least a week now. Saadet had been ordered to wash his clothing and, when it was dry, place it upon his bed. A bed which had already collected a thin layer of dust. If Matthias slept in that bed half the nights of a year Saadet would be incredulous.
Saadet was aware that Fjörleif was on occasion actually sent beyond the Covenant's borders alongside Matthias. She would, in a vague sense, regale Saadet of these excursions; though Fjörleif being... well, Saadet doubted these trips were as romantic or peaceful as described.
"But surely Fjörleif, if he is already a father to your children, you would not be happy if he was intimate with anyone else."
"I don't care. I don't care if Matthias keeps a different whore in every village and town he passes through, so long as he fucks me harder than any of them. "
Vulgarities never seemed to suit Fjörleif's lips.
"Surely you don't mean that in your heart. Besides, you are such a lady, I don't think Matthias would see me the way he sees you."
"Nonsense. You have good breasts and white teeth and honest eyes. You should march up to him and demand he be the father to your children."
"Fjörleif, I, um... I'm not sure Matthias would... agree."
"He would if I told him to."
"But do either of us want him to?"
"I want him to. I want to watch him fuck you, then breastfeed you while he fucks me."
Saadet sensed the futility of arguing with Fjörleif. It was not that Fjörleif never listened to or considered the opinions and feelings of others. It was merely that in that place, at that moment, Saadet would likely waste her breath. Perhaps a different night, or even day, Fjörleif would help Saadet unravel her complex knot of story-tale romance, curiosity, dreams, guilt, lust, ignorance, and loneliness.
Tonight Fjörleif's hand had slipped beneath her wonderful cyclas, making it ripple and slowly undulate across her chest. Perhaps one might wonder what caused it to do so. Perhaps that confused onlooker would wonder to what end Fjörleif acted.
Saadet knew. She knew because she had actively sought the knowledge. She knew that with enough mead Fjörleif would speak her mind with unfiltered frankness. An approach kept to on any theme or subject, in a general sense. But if Fjörleif’s meandering honey-slicked mind stumbled across, for any reason, Matthias, the changes to her demeanor deepened. She would become less a falcon and more a vixen, expressing a sort of raw femininity that Saadet both feared and secretly hoped was buried within her as well.
Saadet knew how Fjörleif felt towards Matthias. She knew that Fjörleif longed to express herself to him but couldn’t bring herself to, for reasons Saadet had not yet mapped. Yet Saadet had discovered that if offered the right words of comfort and support, Fjörleif would cling to the next best thing and at least express herself to someone. Explain her feelings and thoughts at length and in detail.
Intimate detail. Sinful detail... With words that Saadet had elsewhere heard muttered only by the angriest of servants in their most heated annoyance. She knew now what those words meant. She knew that Fjörleif would, if the horn was empty, become so engrossed in her descriptions that she would... forget Saadet’s silent presence. In her clouded mind, she was not neglected and alone at her table but in her happiest of fantasies. She, if not interrupted, would... would... a-act upon those... feelings.
She would speak, no longer to Saadet but to... someone else. She would say t-t-things and Saadet would s-say them too... She would do... things and... and Saadet would do th-them t-too.
Saadet knew that Fjörleif did not know that she knew. She had, in a roundabout way, inquired on Fjörleif's ability to recall when she was both clearheaded and half drowned in mead. Nor did any other servants inquire on the substance of either woman's conversations. Her mother actively discouraged or outright forbade interaction with "that witch-whore", while other servants kept their gossip to less potentially dangerous topics.
Saadet, like others who had spent years in a Covenant, fatalistically assumed that the Magi were privy to her every thought and action. Still, so far as she was aware they had no strong concern regarding her behavior or Fjörleif's. Though as a precaution Saadet had never dared to attempt her luck and drink Fjörleif's amber brew anywhere other than Fjörleif's own quarters. Still, for years they had taken no steps to curtail Saadet's nighttime visits or her daylight conversations with this Covenant's most feared slave.
Fjörleif's hand reappeared only to refill her horn to the brim. Her eyelids were partially closed, and Saadet knew she was no longer thinking about her guest. Saadet seized the opening. She rallied herself, determined to soothe if even a little the spiritual aching which had compelled her down that dark passage.
"Fjörleif, what was your father like?"
"My Father, who is in Heaven, hollowed be His name."
"Fjörleif, I mean your real father. From your home."
"Our father ran off with that big toothed slut from Augsburg."
Saadet was skeptical that Fjörleif's father was a local of the empire they currently resided in. She was on more secure footing in doubting that they shared one.
"I thought you grew up in the North?"
"No... No. I was born in the South. Near the water. All that I cared about, all whom I cared about, were to the north. Whenever I would go anywhere, even were it merely to fetch firewood, I always felt the morning sun on my right cheek. There were, I suppose, other places even more to the south on the other side of the water. But those were not the same place."
"Was your father in that place?"
"No. My father, who is in Heaven, was in Heaven, hallowed be His name."
"Did you have any other fathers? Maybe, a father that you lived with?"
"Oh... eh... I suppose. I had two fathers. My father and my husband's father. But I didn't live with my... um... father."
"You had more than one father... at the same time?"
"We all have more than one father. We have our father, but we have a father who is father to... all creation. The father of all was also my father. But I did not live with him. I lived with my father."
Saadet, who had been attempting to keep Fjörleif talking while also trying to make sense of what she had already said, twitched with realization.
"Fjörleif, you were married?"
"I still am married."
Saadet, mindful even in her distracted shock at the... hypocrisy of it, felt somewhat scandalized at these words considering Fjörleif's... fidelity.
"Um... to whom?"
"I am married to Matthias. Everyone knows that, we've been married for years."
Saadet felt then a resigned disappointment, chill water snuffing the sparks at Fjörleif's initial claims. A disappointment which included a vague form of sympathy for Fjörleif's addled mind. It was unlikely that Fjörleif and Matthias were paired in holy matrimony. Beyond unlikely into impossible that they had been so for many years, for Fjörleif had not even met Matthias until but a few past.
"Oh yes, I remember. It was a lovely ceremony Fjörleif."
"Yesssss... so many flowers, so many people crying for me. Your dress was such a nice color..."
Saadet's mind, though, was not so prone to wander.
"Fjörleif, tell me about your father."
"My father was taller than my mother."
"Yes, but what sort of a man was he? Who was he?"
Fjörleif's hand, which had blatantly begun to roam lower by the time she spoke of her husband, had reappeared. Saadet considered this a significant victory, for it meant Fjörleif was now actively paying attention to her. Or if not to her, per say, then to her question. Indeed, her fingers were now idly tapping on the table, which Saadet knew was a habit only revealed when Fjörleif was angry, frustrated, or deep in concentration. She was gazing morosely into her horn. Slowly swirling around its content, which by now was likely halved.
"He was... proud? No, boastful... Yes, boastful about his marksmanship. He had several bows, which I think were intended for different purposes. He liked all of them, but one of them he liked more. It was as tall as I was, once. I could not draw it further than my elbow with all my might. I could not string it the way you are supposed to.
So one night, I wedged it between the door and a chest I dragged over. I grabbed the other end with both hands and tried to tug it down. I was planning to use the doorframe to keep it bent while I put the string on. But my foot slipped as I was pulling it down, and it snapped straight. It hurt my arm and surprised me, making me cry out. A couple walking sticks fell over and the dogs started barking and my parents woke up.
My father stuck his head out of the door and looked around before bothering to find out if I was hurt. Then he became very angry. He said that bow was not for hunting, or for contests. He said it was for war, not a teenaged girl's games. He was shouting, saying that if I damaged that bow, I was putting the safety of my entire family at risk.
My arm hurt, my pride hurt. I shouted back at him. I said he was filled with sheep shit. He had a spear and a shield and an axe. He had brothers and slaves and dogs and stout walls. I said the real reason he was angry was because he loved that fucking piece of wood more than he loved me.
My mother was aghast. My siblings and the house slaves stopped watching and hastily fled under blankets or out to the pit latrine. My father looked startled, of all things, but only for a moment. It was the first time I ever saw his legendary fury switch so suddenly and completely to a cold, flat glare. I thought he was going to beat me. I thought, surely now he will make sure the bow is not cracked by testing its strength and suppleness on my flesh.
He told me to go to bed, and be thankful I had no need to use a bow. He strung the damned thing, without any of the flare or poems or exaggerated flexing he had always shown before. Just silently bent it and strung with a... predatory ease. He went outside, and my subdued mother ushered me back to my bed."
She took then a long pause, which Saadet was loathe to break. Fjörleif never spoke at such length or in such detail about herself unless heavily intoxicated, and the slightest disturbance would cause her to lose focus or forget what she was talking about. Or, at best, prompt her to veer sharply down a different mental path and never return to finish her thought.
"He was right. I have no need of such a thing. The carcasses of men and beasts pile up around me, without so much as ever once nocking or loosing a single arrow with mine own hands."
Saadet sat silently staring at Fjörleif, who sat silently staring at her hands. Both of them, for she had in the course of her answer completely drained her horn, and then the dregs from the bottle directly. The horn lay upon the table and the bottle had been casually dropped to the floor once emptied. All throughout Fjörleif's recollection her speech had slowed precipitously, her words beginning more and more to drip together like torpid winter rainwater.
Fjörleif had evidently no will to elaborate on her grim conclusion, as she blinked dourly at her slim fingers. She was slouching, and her blinks became more and more languid until one such shuttering did not reopen. Saadet's face wrinkled into an expression of distress. Had she missed her chance? Waited too long or spoke the wrong words? Had she wasted one of few opportunities for real answers? She leaned forward; arm reaching out, perhaps with an unplanned intent to shake her, halted by instinct in midair.
"Fjörleif?"
The word was whispered, but clearly heard. Fjörleif's eyes opened and riveted themselves to Saadet's umber irises. What had been bleary was now crisp. What had been a slouch became attentively tense. Fjörleif reached out her hand to entwine fingers with Saadet's duskier own. Palms lightly touching, Fjörleif broke into a grin.
"Saadet..."
The emphasis was... wrong? Not how Fjörleif, in her weirdly inconsistent accent, usually referred to her. Saadet's hand, in rebellion to the authority of her mind, jerked itself back with insulting urgency.
An uprising swiftly crushed, as Fjörleif held fast to her hand, gripping tighter until her fingertips painfully ground between the knuckles of Saadet's reflexively bucking hand. Unwavering in her gaze, Fjörleif's sly smirk shred the last vestiges of friendliness or compassion from Fjörleif's persona.
Saadet knew. She knew because she had actively sought the knowledge. She knew that with enough mead Fjörleif might... not truly be Fjörleif anymore. That... others might join them for the tiny festival in the windowless room. Others, whose otherness was the only thing that united them. Nameless to Saadet, if even named at all. With amorphous attitudes and whims, Saadet could never tell who, or what, spoke with Fjörleif's voice. Could not discern if the uninvited arrival was a single neighbor capriciously inconsistent, a flock who chirped and cawed in turn, or even a choir who spoke as legion.
That Saadet did not know. That Saadet did not... want to know. What she knew was that, some of the time, "Fjörleif" would tell her, some of, what she did yearn to know. With intense will, more difficult than staying silent through pain, Saadet quelled her panicking arm and returned the piercing look of her host.
"Who is my father?"
"Your father is dead."
The sensation when one almost slips upon cobblestones one did not realize were icy yet regains equilibrium, holding arms outstretched in-between relief and disbelief, washed across Saadet's essence.
She had prepared herself for such a possible reply, yet still it rocked her like a wave. Years of juvenile fantasies of knights errant and banished kings, swept aside and told to hush but never starved completely, choked out their last gasps. Saadet steeled her heart. She had, for many years, internalized that even were her father still alive, he would never be a part of her life in that way and thus was "dead" regardless. Her mother certainly held this opinion, and used it as justification to stomp out Saadet's repeated inquiries.
"Who was my father?"
"Your father was dead before you were born."
"Tell me who my father was!"
Saadet listened to her own words as if listening to a stranger through a door. Alarmed at what she heard, wordlessly begging that other, reckless person to be silent. Whomever she was addressing had neither Fjörleif's placid patience nor the Magi's stony indifference. Some primal part of her subconscious howled at herself that she must flee! That she risked her life with every syllable. That she risked... more than just her life.
For what? The answers already given were themselves treasure worth more than a dozen barrels of silver coins. Saadet could live the remainder of her days within her prison comforted by the knowledge that no person she had ever met was her father. The rumors, the whispers... at least now she felt confident that some portion of them were only that. She was freed not from misery or servitude, but at least from the awkward and unpleasant uncertainty she had felt all her life when in the presence of any male in the Covenant or beyond.
What terrible impulse then, whipped her to demand more?
"Your father was dead."
"I know that! I ac... accept th... that... But please, oh please I beg you, tell me who my father was!"
"Your father stands beside you."
Saadet was taken aback at this unexpected reply, and turned to look around the ro... Oh Lord preserve me! Spare me Lord I... I... ask thee to... Merciful Jesus it was one of the dead. A withered and pallid hand upon her slender shoulder. A hunchbacked ghoul stooped under the low ceiling yet looming large above her. It was... one of the two dead men standing outside, though now inside and with dry palm painfully clamped on her clavicle. Shivers wracked her figure, and she looked again up towards his expressionless visage.
This man was not her father. This man had died but only a year past, and Saadet had spoken some with him while alive. He had, she later discovered, served in the private retinue of some local nobility. He had done... some crime, which was unclear to Saadet, which prompted him to flee. He had tried evading pursuit by entering the edges of the area patrolled by the Covenant's sentries. Perhaps he had hoped the hounds and hunters would quail, and he might quickly skirt through the Covenant's domain and continue his flight with an advantage.
While not an impossible aim, in this instance he did not succeed. Something dead noticed him, and raised an alarm. Other dead frightened the fugitive into deeper parts of the forested mountains, where eventually he was cornered by living soldiers serving the Magi. He practically threw himself into their arms, for surely they would be more merciful than the dead.
A foolish notion, for the soldiers dragged him to the Covenant itself, at the very heart of the Magi's domain. As all the Magi were busy with their own affairs, the retainer was held bound for several days awaiting the convenience of any of the three. Magi Jacobs ended up being his judge, though ultimately his fate would likely have been similar regardless of whom he begged.
He was summarily executed. As it was determined that his pursuers had stopped hunting for him they likely assumed he was already dead and needed no further effort. He had confessed to his crimes before the Magi, and as his death was deemed by the judge likely to cause no conflict with the surrounding communities, the matter was dropped.
Saadet's role in all of this had been to occasionally bring the man water in his cell. The Covenant's main cook decided to hedge his bets, thinking it better to not potentially waste food until further instruction. By the end of the second day, the man had grown so miserable that Saadet took a measure of Christian charity on the poor soul. She shared with him some of her own daily food, which prompted him to speak to her differently than the others, and at greater length.
Among other things, he said that he was not yet thirty and could not accept the idea of dying without having had a family or adventure or accomplishment. He was not her father... She looked at him, but he did not return the interest. Rather, he stared sightlessly towards... Fjörleif?
It was only when he jerked her back so roughly she tumbled from her chair that she realized his sword was drawn. He painfully squeezed her shoulder, to the point his fingernails tore through her garment and into her skin as he dragged her away. She stopped herself from fighting him only when the instinctual disgust at the touch of the dead melted into deep fear. Oh Lord... Oh Lord in Heaven...
Fjörleif was still holding her hand.
Holding it in that uncharacteristic vice! The dead man jerked her again. Dragging her away, until Saadet's and Fjörleif's arms had been stretched to their terminus. He raised his sword! Saadet screamed!
Suddenly the pair both fell a step back, as Saadet's hand was released. The dead man immediately resumed his clumsy hunched shuffle towards the door, though now Saadet did not struggle or resist. She looked wildly towards Fjörleif, who stared unblinking and motionless, save the eyes which followed hers. A gorgeous statue sitting on Fjörleif's plain little seat, finally obscured when Saadet was hauled around the edge of the screen.
A voice weaved through the smoke and gloom. Feminine and familiar, but in her heart Saadet did not know who spoke, or to whom the voice addressed.
"Don't forget to lock the door."