“You’re not making me sorry I left him to die,” Cyrus said, holding the branch steady, letting it catch fire. He watched the flames lick at the healthy bough, saw the first black scoring appear upon it.
“As you said, I’ve been married for a year and I was glad to leave him to die,” she said stiffly. “I never considered myself a cold or vicious person, but perhaps I am.” She looked away and her eyes fixated again on Vernadam’s shadow in the distance. “I certainly was not much of a wife, to hear my husband tell it.”
“I doubt you gave him any cause for beatings or whippings,” Cyrus said, letting the branch drift through a pile of ashes. “Because there is no cause for such things, not between husband and wife. He did not seem the sort of man whose justification I would accept as anything other than the petty anger of a man denied something.”
“Denied?” She looked at Cyrus and wore the faintest half-smile. “I denied him nothing. Not my body, at all hours, not his favors, requested day and night. He came to me often in the hours of the morning too early to be measured by any light, and I would give him that which he craved so fervently, no matter how asleep I was. Once, he came to me when I was in a deep grog. I moved too slowly for his liking, so he dragged me by the hair out to the courtyard where he bound me to a post, naked, and had his way with me in front of all of his men and the servants and everyone.” Her lip quivered, but her eyes smoldered like the fire. “So that he could show them-and me-that he ruled his household with a firm and unyielding hand. When he was done, he left me there for a day, without food or water, like a common thief or drunk, and forbade the doctor to see to my injuries.”
The twigs at the end of Cyrus’s branch caught on fire at last, and he pulled it out of the flame, holding the length above it, the smallest reaches of it burning with a light of their own. “How did you get saddled with him?”
She looked away again. “My brother gave me to him in marriage, in hopes of gaining his favor.” She looked back at Cyrus. “Since my father is dead, my brother was well within his rights to give me to anyone he wanted to.”
“And now?” Cyrus watched the slow burn of the twigs spread up the branch. “Now that he’s dead, wouldn’t your brother want to marry you off again, to someone else?”
“No,” she said simply. “Because now I am damaged, imperfect.”
Cyrus frowned. “Because you’ve been married before? By that standard, I suppose I’m damaged and imperfect, too.” He raised an eyebrow. “Which I actually am but not because of being married before.”
“No,” she said. “Because of the scars. Because of the whippings, the beatings … and … other things he’s done to me.” She swallowed hard. “He used to say that he had left his mark on me, that no other man would ever want me, or would ever have me, after what he’d done.”
“I don’t, uh …” Cyrus looked at her. “I’m sorry, I mean, I’ve seen you in a … somewhat revealing dress … I guess ….I mean, I didn’t see anything.”
“You wouldn’t.” She shook her head, very slightly and perched on her lips was a rueful smile. “The men and women in the courtyard the night he dragged me out and tied me to the post, they saw. But he kept it … all well below what the rest of the world would see. Women are expected to maintain a certain standard of propriety, after all.” He saw a single tear flow from her left eye, down her cheek, to rest on her defined chin. It was a perfect droplet, just the one, and it lingered there. “The simple loss of my virginity to my husband would not be considered enough to defile me for life, to make me untouchable to other men for marriageable purposes.”
“Ah,” Cyrus looked at the Baroness again, saw the smoldering anger in her eyes, and felt it touch him. My emotions are muted and best they remain that way. I already feel less remorse for leaving the Baron as I did. Men who dominate and abuse women in such a manner are scum, but I fear my anger with him would have me become a torturer were I to fully loose it upon that wretch. He looked back at her; she was undeniably beautiful, stunning even, to his eyes, which had become somewhat jaded of late, filled to the top as they were with the intoxicating beauty of a she-elf who had hurt him so.
The Baroness is different. She seems … not helpless. Far from it. But wounded. Like me. She possessed an air, a quality of genuine and natural beauty. She seemed to sense his gaze and turned to look at him. “And you?” she asked. “You are not married?”
“Not anymore.” He sniffed and threw the branch into the fire, smelled the smokiness of the wood filling the crisp air.
“Is she … gone on?” The Baroness looked at him carefully, probing.
“She was still quite lively when last I saw her, which was a year or two ago,” he said. “She left me.”
“Left you?” There was a rising curiosity in the Baroness’s voice. “You allowed this?”
“Allowed it?” Cyrus suppressed a laugh. “I gave my full consent when she asked for the divorce decree. She didn’t want to be married to a warrior who was always traveling, always gone, always in danger.”
Cattrine frowned, as though contemplating something impossible. “Is that … does that happen often in your land? A woman leaving a man when she is unsatisfied?” She blushed. “I don’t mean to suggest she was unsatisfied by you. I’m certain you’re very satisfying.” She blushed deeper, a crimson shade in the firelight.
Cyrus watched her with some amusement before he shrugged. “It happens. More among the elves than the humans, I’m told, but it happens among my people as well.”
“Fascinating,” the Baroness said, her skin lit by the flickering of the fire. “Your world is ever so much different than my own.”
“If you think that’s different, you should see Sanctuary,” Cyrus said.
“Your guild is called Sanctuary, yes?” The Baroness looked at him once more, her hand resting on her leg, her knees pulled up to her chest. “But there is a place called Sanctuary as well?”
“Our guildhall, yes.”
“What is it like there?” Her voice carried a combination of awe and wistfulness.
“It’s in the middle of the Plains of Perdamun, a long, wide stretch of grasslands. When you teleport into the plains, you have to run south through a field of wildflowers to Sanctuary. They’ll be in bloom now, I suppose, all the colors on display … red, blue, purple and orange. It’s like a rainbow growing from the ground, and if you’re with a druid, and they cast the Falcon’s Essence spell, you can run right over them, watch them rock in the wind as you pass, stirring them. The main tower appears first, looming above you like a spire sticking out of the ground, then you see the other towers and the wall … it’s built with a curtain wall like a castle, but it’s like no castle you’ve ever seen.
“The wall goes around for a mile or more … encloses gardens, stables, an archery range … and in the middle of it all is Sanctuary.” Cyrus smiled at the memory, the thought of the stone blocks that comprised the guildhall, of the stained glass window glowing in all its colors above the main doors. “It’s gorgeous. One of the … warmest places I’ve ever been. It was …” His smile faded. “Home.”
“You miss it.” Her voice punctuated the quiet against the crackle of the fire against the logs.
“I suppose.”
“Were you always in Sanctuary?”
“No. I was born and raised in Reikonos, the capital of the Human Confederation.”
“Was that where you learned to fight?” She hugged her knees closer to her chest. “Was that where you got your sword?”
“I learned to fight there, but I got my sword-this sword,” he tugged at the hilt of Praelior, “later, when I was with Sanctuary.”
“Did your parents teach you how to fight?” She looked at him with genuine interest, and he felt himself warm, something unrelated to the fire.
“My father was a great warrior, but he died when I was far too young to learn how to fight. No, I learned in the Society of Arms-where they send all young men and women who wish to learn to master the fighting arts.”