Chapter 3 Memories of Hate and Blood
It has been a few days and my wound is healing but Valtok wont let me train or even give me my knife back. Sitting in my room all the time is making me crazy. He constantly hangs around saying he wants to make sure I stay in bed but really he wants to protect me. It's annoying as all hell and making me even crazier. "Please go away!" I groan throwing my blanket over my head as Valtok starts reciting battle tactics again.
"Cant do that, you need to learn and since you cant train you will memorize." I groan as a skinny boy comes in bowing. Valtok sets down his papers standing from my bed.
"The king wishes to speak with you master Valtok." He says in such a rehearsed way it bores me.
"Thank you." He nods and the boy runs off. "I guess I gotta go."
"Yay!" I cheer he sticks out his tongue at me as he walks past and out childishly. I sit up tossing my blankets off stretching I turn to my window wanting fresh air but find my mother and father watching charlie demonstrate a knife tactic with another knight. Annika stands close by watching with a few of her ladies in waiting. I smile at the scene, she watches him with a small smile on her face like she doesn't notice she's doing it, not even listening to her ladies chatter. I turn away for a moment to get dressed then I hear a shout and a woman screaming, I run to my window to see red splattered across the dirt of the training field and a woman holding a dying knight in her arms. I run down the stairs forgetting my slippers and my stitches, the cold stone bites into my heels but I push myself faster because that woman is my eldest sister.
I get to the field the gravel crunches under my bare feet. Hearing my sisters sobs as clear as day ringing in my ears, she screams Charlie's name not caring about the blood soaking into her green silk dress. Father stands holding mother as she cries. Valtok kneels beside Charlie looking over the wound before the healer arrives as he arrived first. Annika sees me reaching out for me to hold her, I fall to my knees beside her and we wrap our arms around each other, she cries into my shoulder I stroke her hair.
"Ann, it's ok, shh, shh, you'll see him again." I whisper to her rocking her in my arms as our doctor and a few knights arrive to try to stop the bleeding by taking off his armor with Valtok. I watch the knights fumble around for a few seconds then let go of my sister to help them take the armor off, once the armor and leather is stripped away I see the gapping hole in his chest I almost throw up at the sight of all the blood oozing out of it, I pull away but before I can go far the doctor claps a withered old hand around my wrist, the blood sticks to my skin, staining it.
"I'll need your help dear." She says I nod not really knowing what else to do. "Hold this here." She slaps a rag in my hand and places my hand on the wound, "Press it harder." I do as she says making Charlie groans but grits his teeth but nods to me telling me its fine blood flows between my fingers. "You've got a lot of blood pouring out of this wound, I'm going to sow you up because we cant move you yet, this is gunna hurt, you think you can keep still?" She asks threading a needle, he chuckles painfully.
"I'm a knight, it wont hurt." She snorts kneeling on the other side of his body.
"Thats what they all say, now keep still Mr. Knight." She nods to me so I remove the rag blood drips from it. She dives right it quickly sowing up the wound as if it were a simple mend to linens and not thick muscle and human flesh. Charlie grits his teeth the whole time and Ann crawls over to take his hand. By how hard he's squeezing he's in real pain now so is she I flinch remembering my own painful encounter with that needle. I help the doctor tie off the thread then the other knights help carry him back to the infirmary where the doctor will do anything else she needs to, Ann follows. I help the doctor carry her bag just wanting to get away from the blood.
I never liked the infirmary because I always hear the knights moan in pain and think that this is the consequence of being a knight this could happen to me if I actually became one. I could be the one dying from being stupid or because I'm a woman no one would like me being a knight they would fight it whole heartedly maybe even fight me just to kill me. I bump into the doctors back jostling her bag when she stops suddenly.
"Careful dear," She says absentmindedly and rummages though variously colored bottles on a wooden shelf I put the bag down on her cluttered desk. The knights lay Charlie down on an old table, blood stains the wood and fear twists in my gut, Annika's blue eyes glaze over with tears as Charlie had passed out during the short trip here. "There it is!" The doctors shout startles me but she takes no mind quickly popping the top of a greenish bottle with thick brown liquid in it.
"What is it?" I ask with disgust, she scoffs and pours whats left in a big bowl.
"It will save his life, that all you need to know missy." I nod even though I wanted to ask questions about it, maybe when my brother in law isn't dying on a table. She mixes in a few leafs of some thick purple plant then some kind of red spices and mashes it all up as she's mixing it then scoops up some of it with her hand and slathers it on his wound, wraps a giant leaf around it then a clean bandage over all of it. "That should do it, I will be monitoring him here. He's going to have to stay for at lest a week and then bed rest for another he cannot open this would back up or agitate it in anyway. This was almost a fatal wound and if he stresses it, it still can be." She says surprisingly lightly for telling us he could still die.
"I understand, thank you doctor Lynn." Ann says cutting me off as I open my mouth to argue as always. She nods and walks out leaving us with him.
"How is a disgusting brown liquid going to save his life?" I snap and start pacing, Charlie and my father are the only ones that support my training, who treated me like I wasn't useless.
"He will live, don't worry." I roll my eyes.
"Why because that doctor said so?"
"No because he has to." She says not taking her eyes off him and slowly sides her hand across her abdomen. It hits me like a ton of bricks.
"You're pregnant?" She looks up at me with a slightly watery smile.
"Not really the way I wanted to tell you, but you see if he doesn't live for me he has to live for our child, and he will, I know he will." She looks back down at him, she really does love him. I nod and leave her with him till the rest of our family comes. That night I lay in bed unable to sleep because my older sister is pregnant with a dying mans child and she cant save either. He'll live for her I know he will because he loves her too.
The next few days are hard on all of us, my mother cries more then Ann does and the twins still haven't shown up to see him, my father rarely comes. I sit with Ann when she doesn't want to be alone and leave her when she does, she sleeps in the cot beside him and rarely leaves his side. I bring her food and help her eat but she doesn't seem to live anymore. It's almost been a week but he hasn't gotten better, if anything he's gotten worse.
"He's going to die isn't he?" Annika says one night holding his hand and whipping sweat from his forehead.
"Charlie's gong to be just fine, the doctor said so." She shakes her head, her blonde tangled hair jerks with the movement.
"You said it yourself, how is this going to help him? He's not going to live, Sylenia, what do I do?"
"He will, I'll make sure of it." She grabs my arm as I stand up catching on to my plan.
"Please, don't go back to her, you already lost so much." I shake my head.
"If he dies you'll lose more then I ever could." She looks back at him lying in the cot slowly bleeding through the bandage and nods letting go of my arm.
"Don't let her take your heart, that would be the greatest loss of all." I nod and walk out steeling myself against what I have to do now.
Out in the woods is a witch, she makes deals with people only ever taking what means the most to them in exchange for whatever they want. I went to her when I was younger, she took my ability to have children in exchange to save my youngest brother, he died anyway. I walk out making sure no one sees me or follows as I make my way into the dense forest. I remember the way because I had to drag my body through these woods, bloody and broken, to see if it worked, if my mother could look at me again. She still cant. The witch scratched ruins into trees to hide herself from witch hunters, I trace one on an old oak stained with my own blood from all those years ago then trudge forward deeper into the woods to save my family again. A hand wraps around my arm and yanks me back into a strong chest, I was hoping he wouldn't be here.
"What the hell are you doing?" A man hisses at me pulling me back the way I came. I yank my arm out of his grasp and back away from him but I still cant make out his face in the gloom of the forest.
"Who are you?" I snap.
"Valtok, your highness." He snaps back sarcastically and I roll my eyes to hide my shock, I was sure it'd be him saving me again.
"Shouldn't you be sitting at my fathers feet like a good little guard dog." I snap back at the master assassin.
"Shouldn't you be with your sister instead of going to sell your soul to a witch!" He shouts scaring some birds in the trees over head.
"This doesn't concern you!"
"Actually it does princess, I'm supposed to be protecting you, even from yourself. Now get your spoiled ass back to the castle before I drag you there myself." I cross my arms and lift my chin defiantly.
"You couldn't if you tried." He glares at me and I glare right back.
"You have 3 seconds." I just roll my eyes. "One," I hold up my finger trying to get under his armored skin, "two," Another finger, "don't let me get to three."
"I dare you." His lips curl into the most mischievous smile I have ever seen on someones face.
"Three," He growls. I turn and bolt. He chases after me but I know the forest better then he does. I know about old tunnels that lead under the castle and open up in quite a hidden place a few feet ahead of me. I almost reach the rocks when arms wrap around my waist, "The tunnels, really princess? You didn't think I knew about those?" He asks quietly in my ear. "Luckily you're easy to track, we should work on that if you plan to be my second." I yank away and face him.
"What how do you know about these? How did you know I was headed to them?"
"You really think I wouldn't know about tunnels that go under the castle? Oh princess you are too obvious for your own good."
"Stop calling me princess you jackhole! I am not obvious, how do you know I wasn't just running away?" I ask and he laughs.
"Because you knew where you were going." I roll my eyes, what and egotistical ass.
"Oh please you couldn't know that by following me."
"Your smart for a princess, but not smart enough." I cross my arms.
"As if you know how smart I am." He laughs.
"Its easy to judge how smart you are by how obviously you flaunt it."
"I am not obvious!" I snap getting fed up with his over use of the word. Asshole.
"Everything that I have seen from you is as obvious as it gets, you don't hide yourself which is commendable but its foolish at the same time, there are some people in this world that shouldn't know you. Like one of those ignorant knights you want to be so badly because they will betray you the second they know you."
"You're one of those knights, remember?"
"Oh sweetheart, you have so much to learn."