Authors: Romina Nicolaides
I ran my fingers through his hair and I untied the ceremonial robes he was bundled in. As I undid the robes I noticed something that I hadn’t seen when I picked him up. Amongst all the clothing lay a small wooden box with an inlaid hunting scene on it and next to it the small knife the priest had tried to use on him. It must have fallen in the clothes during our rushed exchange. It was small but pristine and so beautifully crafted out of fine silver. I opened the box and it was filled with five other knives of different sizes the hilts of which were equally ornate and decorated with what looked like more scenes from the same story. There was a stag and a woman with a bow and arrow and I marveled at how beautiful and powerful she looked. I carefully replaced the missing knife in its holder with the fabric from my skirt and closed it tightly. These were the knives the priest was going to use to kill my little boy and I wondered at their significance. I put the notebooks I had taken from him on top of the box and secured them with a large piece of twine to protect them until I could find out more about them. Vyktor then made a harness with fabric scraps with which he secured the child onto his back and we set off. We still had the silver bracelets on our hands and we would have to find someone to remove them before completely regaining our strength and abilities.
A few hours before dawn we reached a village where a blacksmith was firing his furnaces in order to start work before the strong heat of the summer’s day. We didn’t know what language he spoke and he didn't understand Latin but we somehow managed to communicate to him that he could keep all four bracelets if he took them off us. We also gestured at his horse but he was unconvinced. I don’t know what the going rate for a horse was at that time, but the tired old mule that we were given seemed grossly overpriced.
At day break we reached a house the stench emanating from which testified to the fact that its now dead residents had been further victims of the plague and we were amused by the fact that this pestilence was providing excellent cover for us. The former owners were a family of four. The house, which was relatively pleasant and spacious, was filled with milking accoutrements indicating that this had been a family of dairy farmers before they'd gotten ill. In the bedroom upstairs a woman lay in a large bed with her two daughters in her arms, a beautiful scene had it not been for their disfigured bodies, discolored skins and pained expressions. Flies and maggots buzzed and wriggled about them unperturbed by the foul stench that blanketed the entire floor. I closed the door tightly, instinctively wiping my hands on my skirts from whatever unseen miasma still lingered on the handle. The father we found on the lawn outside in a similar state, his decomposing fingers still clasped tightly around a wooden pail as he made to fetch water from the well but never reaching it. From one of the other rooms we helped ourselves to new clothing and shoes and burned the old ones in the fireplace, trying to cover our tracks. To my good fortune the outhouse included a large tub which we happily filled with some fresh water from the well and washed ourselves for the first time since our escape from the Keep. I was extremely grateful for the family’s well-stocked pantry which included lavender and rose scented goat milk soap, made by them using their surplus produce.
I washed myself and my boy and put him in clean clothing. All I had found for him was girls’ chemises but at least they were clean and not Order prescribed. All the same I washed his Keep robes as well as I could and carefully bundled them along with the knives and the books to examine later lest their inscriptions hid some kind of meaning relating to the condition they had reduced him to. Climbing up to the higher lever of the barn we lay down to rest.
“We should give our boy a name.” I said, trying to make Vyktor feel something towards him. I realized his condition meant that his father had been slowly rejecting him.
“Where I come from, the name for the chosen is Valgt and for warrior it’s Kriger, so I think we should call him that after the trials he has endured.”
“Valgtkriger…” I said it out loud, trying to learn my son’s new name. I knew that he was no warrior in the traditional sense but it felt right because he had managed to survive in that place for so long on his own.
The following evening we reluctantly left Valgt sleeping in the barn and went hunting together. The risk of being discovered always at the back of our minds, our eyes and ears ever-vigilant for the subtle ghosts and their guardians. As we walked through the forest we felt fortunate to have survived and still be together enjoying a relatively carefree moment of hunting. Having caught three rabbits we sat on the ground, drank their blood and ate their flesh. No humans were to be found in the area so this would have to do. When we were done we just lay down and looked at the stars for a long time.
“Vyktor, do you think Valgt will ever be cured?”
“Do you?”
“I think that by studying the Priest’s writings I might find something to help him.”
“Then I believe it too. I have faith in you, Theodora, and I know that when you put your mind to something you can make it happen. We’re a family, and whatever happens we need to stick together.”
Sitting up, he produced a golden ring with a small ruby from his pocket and put it on my finger.
“How apt,” I said looking at the glistening red stone.
“Under witness of the moon and the stars I bind myself to you, Theodora Laskari, till my dying breath. If I am grateful to the priests for one thing, it is for bringing you and Valgt into my life for through you I have known a real love and it is because of this love that I am living and breathing here, right now. Knowing love like this is a true blessing." My beautiful Norse warrior might not have been a man of many words normally but when he did speak, he spoke volumes. With tears in my eyes I took his face in my hands and kissed him with all my heart and we made love under the night sky for the first time.
Kati finished the last page in the bundle of notes and got to binding it. She mulled over what she had learned as she glued and sewed. Without realizing it another evening had passed and she wondered how much longer she had before the Countess returned.
Fifteen
The next book in line was different, older and more weathered than the other writings. This one had already been bound, but it needed to be fixed. It had been leafed through many times and the spine had come off in several places.
Kati opened it carefully and saw it also read differently.
Venice 21
st
June 1575 A.D.
Though I have been taught letters in the Keep it has been a long time since I’ve held a quill in my hand. When we were first captured we were taught to write but I never thought I would be free or have an opportunity to put quill to paper. It is a skill that takes practice so now that I can, I shall document our days and hopefully improve my penmanship and also decipher the Father Superior’s notebooks, for I believe my son’s cure is in there. This is the first of a series of journals telling my story for the benefit of my son for when he is well. If for whatever reason I cannot tell him myself, then he will know how he came to be. I will start from the present moment and then go all the way back to my childhood, Affliction and imprisonment though some of the dates are unclear in my head, particularly in relation to my time in the Keep.
After several weeks of traveling we have come to a place where we can hopefully remain undetected for a while. Venice is a beautiful city built on the water with canals instead of streets and bridges instead of alleys. I recognize some of the sculptures in the streets from Constantinople from when the Crusaders came and took the city from us and destroyed it for its art and valuables. It is a peculiar sensation to think that no one who witnessed those scenes of mayhem and savagery unfold is alive today other than myself and that to look at the sculpts you would think they have been here forever. I suppose in a way they have.
The city has been severely ravaged by the Great Mortality which we have been witnessing throughout our travels over these weeks and which brought about our freedom from the Keep. It has suffered a great loss of population and those that remain have abandoned their senses. They live day to day and are slaves to their lusts and instincts for they do not know if they will still be with the living tomorrow. They have witnessed so much death in recent months that there’s a certain acceptance it is but days away and chaos reigns supreme. Life still goes on but thieves and impostors are virtually in charge as are the ones that claim that this is God’s punishment for their sins. The belief that this is the end of days is rife and soon all shall descend into hell forever. I wish I could tell them that there is no such thing and that this is simply a pestilence, albeit a powerful one, and that suffering on this earth is the only hell there is.
We have chosen to stay in Venice as death has been so prevalent here that our feeding will not cause suspicion, but we have to be careful all the same. We have also managed to hide the child with a poor family outside the city so that his frailty is not suspected as sickness which could mean our being turned away or worse. We are staying at an inn in the city center, where the innkeeper has been taken by the pestilence and his young wife is happy enough to have some people around her. We have told her we are medics studying the disease and looking for a cure during the day and helping the sick by night and though she is skeptical she has accepted us as she desperately needs the money we are paying her. Our apparent wellbeing gives her some comfort.
I cannot put into words how much the world has changed in the time I have been away. I feel so left behind with events and advancements that sometimes I am at a loss at what to say in conversation and not sound ignorant or insane so I use my time in looking for a cure and reading whatever I can get my hands on regarding current and past events.
Venice 3
rd
August 1576
The plague in Venice has continued for the second year in a row. The people of the city are dying by the thousands, particularly the poor and unclean. There isn’t a single household that hasn’t been affected by this disease. No family remains intact. The pizzicamorti walk the streets in great numbers, overburdened by their work. They wear bells on their feet so that the living can hear them coming and hand them their dead along with whatever they can afford for their burial. No doubt they are all thrown in mass graves like the one we encountered on our escape from the Keep. The mood in the city is tentative and dangerous. People are fast to suspect and cast aspersions. No one is beyond recrimination particularly those who are new to the area, independent or unusual. Two nights ago a mob attacked a young man on the street who stole an apple from a fruit vendor and killed him on the spot for his dishonesty.
We continue our tentative existence at the inn but sometimes I fear for our safety. The fact that we remain hidden during the daytime makes people suspicious of us and Vyktor says we should move on but I believe these apothecaries might have a solution for my son so I am hesitant to leave. At night I visit their stores looking for herbs and medicines that might be of some use in my research. The boy is still with the family and I bring him blood nightly after they have gone to bed, along with whatever concoction I have created up to that point, but still he sleeps. Once he opened his eyes and looked straight at me. He has eyes just like his father only fainter, like his porcelain complexion. Though he does not wake, he still grows and I can tell that one day he’ll be tall and strong just like Vyktor!
The next few pages were written without a date and appeared erratic.
They’ve taken Vyktor! They took him while I was visiting Valgt. A neighbor saw him drink from a woman on the street the night before last and told the landlady who decided to turn us in. She waited for him to come in after feeding and called the authorities who were followed by a quick-forming mob. They all rushed into the room and grabbed him and I saw it all from the end of the street as I returned. Had I come five minutes earlier I would have suffered the same fate. I froze on the spot as soon as I saw them and was unable to do anything or they would have taken me too. “Revenanti,” they kept repeating, "Revenanti, blood sucking disease bringers.” I watched them drag my husband away by his hands and feet while he vainly struggled to escape but they were too many. I followed behind them through the streets until they reached a small piazza and without ceremony produced a sword and impaled my love. I looked away before they cut off his head and was unable to hold back the vomit that rose to my mouth. After they were done they just left him there and dispersed in all different directions wiping their hands of his blood, content that they had done their bit to rid the world of the pestilence.
When I felt safe that they were gone I ran to him and cried on his body for I don’t know how long. My beloved Vyktor’s lifeless form lay before me. After the centuries of incarceration, pain and torture he had endured he did not deserve this end despite his sanguineous Affliction. Does one blame the wolf or the fox for what he eats? Do not the shark and the whale feed on the other fishes? Why then must our kind be hunted for what we have no control over? We only feed on humans to survive, whilst they kill each other out of sport, greed and insanity. The injustice welled up inside me and I wanted to kill every last living creature that called himself a human in this city. I pushed his body into the water and watched it sink slowly into the murky waters. I kissed his forehead and wrapped the head in my apron and took it with me.