The Sighs of the Priestess Ch. 01

His own smile was very cold, "You might even survive it. Who has the keys to her shackles?"

"We were told to bring her and unlock her inside your chambers," one of them said.

"So jailers are stupid as well as worthless," he said, "Give me the keys or you will all look like this one. None of you could run very far to save your skins. Give me the keys now."

They turned to go after giving him the keys, but stopped frozen in place when they heard his voice.

"I remind you that a warrior -- even the lowest one -- stands far higher here than a worthless jailer. You would do well to bow before you leave my sight, or I will make you kneel to this one here."

In a few moments, he was alone with her. He ignored her proud glare. "Can you even walk like this? They made you shuffle all of this way. Can you still walk?"

She nodded, but her eyes spoke of her hate.

"Come then, please, and if it is trouble for you, only say it and I will carry you."

Her eyes flashed in warning and then she began to hobble. He sighed and waited for her before he followed and closed the door. From what he'd overheard, the gift of her wasn't more than a hope that he might be successful in killing her since no one else had been able to accomplish it. Since it was plain that he'd get nothing from her in the way of civility, he sat down to think.

The rest of what he'd heard made him at least a little hopeful. She had been born a high priestess among her own people. She obviously carried herself proudly even after there were few left to worship the gods of her people since there no longer was a temple, other than a ruin on a hill, and there no longer was a people, other than several hundred thousand surviving as conquered peasants now. He'd heard of her before and now wondered how the gods had managed this.

She'd come to him in chains, glaring and seething with her hatred for what his kind had done. The trouble was that she wasn't defenseless, and no matter what had been attempted to break her spirit, those who'd tried had most often ended up dead before her. They'd tried to beat her, whip her, rape her and worse, but though she was chained, she always remained standing there triumphant and laughing. Her gods hadn't forgotten her.

She stood before the fighter, covered in the filth of her neglect at the hands of the frightened jailers. They hadn't fed her for a week, just hoping that she'd begin to starve quietly. All that they'd accomplished was to make her angrier. It was little wonder to hear that they were overjoyed at the chance to be rid of this one.

She sneered at her new owner. She knew enough of their speech, and she was more than prepared to taunt him.

"And?" she glared as she stood before him, "what is your first wish, the first of the commands from my..."

Her nose wrinkled in derision and her voice dripped with her scorn, "master."

She spit on the floor between them.

He'd looked up from where he sat at the table in his new home, still wondering how he was going to manage all of this -- and just how even he was going to be able to eat all of this food here.

He didn't much like what he saw. The girl was beautiful to him, despite her obvious hatred, and it shamed him to see what his countrymen had done to her -- or tried to.

He asked her name, and before she could spit again, he added that it would be fine with him if she lied to him -- he only wanted a name by which he could talk with her. To her own amazement, she told it to him truthfully. She wondered then about the look on his face.

"You are a priestess of the eresh-dingir?"

She nodded, "The second priestess I was. What do you know of this?"

"A little," he said.

"Then you know what I can do to -"

She stopped when she heard him try to speak her name and said it correctly on the second try.

"Well," he said, "that is the first thing out of the way." He gave her his name then and told her that he never wanted to hear her call him her master again. "You have much pride in you still, and it is good to see. I have no plan to break that pride and I cannot think that it would do either of us any good."

He said, "We are both here due to circumstance. I did not ask to be given a slave, and I did not ask that it be you. Until just now, I knew nothing of you at all but what was told to me far from here. But I will say this; we both are as slaves here and I have my own master, though I wear no chains that you might see. What I see on you there are nothing more than reminders of the ones which I wear, though mine are a little longer."

He nodded, "On one so beautiful and proud, they are as sins to me."

He gestured toward the feast on his table, "Please do not spit on my floor again. I think that I need the help of my new companion with this problem before me. Food such as this goes wasted everywhere here, and I see it as wrong -- just as I see those chains in the same way."

"Be glad of these chains," she growled, "for they are all that prevent me from tearing your heart from you." She began to curse him and revile him in an unending torrent of insults.

He listened for a time. Every so often, his eyes would widen at what she'd said, and there were a few moments where she'd almost stopped to stare at how he smiled to hear her curses. She did stop only once when he'd begun to laugh softly; knowing that what she'd said couldn't be done to oneself. Finally, he stood to step closer to her. She was surprised, but it didn't cause her to miss a beat in her scathing tirade. He held up his hand and it caused her to pause, still glaring at him.

"What?" she scowled.

He smiled, "You waste your breath on one such as me, my new friend. You know only some of the speech here, but you already use better words than I have ever learned or even heard in my life. By this, I see that you are very likely far more clever than I. It makes me happy to see it. I could use some help here from a quick mind."

Her eyes went wide at this. "Help? You want help from me?"

She seethed, "I could strike you blind with a word," she said, "I could burn the hide right off you with only three. I am not your friend, you stupid, brutish beast. I revile you and all of your kind, I -- "

"I have little doubt of it, my friend," he said a little dryly, though she could see that incredibly, he showed no smugness or enjoyment from her captivity, "but I believe that you are at least limited in your ability or you would have waved your hand and struck down the host which rode over your land and brought you here to me in chains at the last. I know that you have power to retaliate if someone seeks to harm you." He smiled at her, "I also know that you may not use the same power to originate harm to anyone without cause, or you suffer some of what was sent."

The priestess' jaw dropped in astonishment, "How, ...?"

He looked away for a moment toward the terrace. "Not long after your land fell, I was sent to the temple to see what might be left as gold or riches in hidden places, perhaps, where thieves and robbers, and ... leather-covered savages might not think to look. It made me sad to see it, for I could tell that it had once been a wondrous and beautiful place. I had a prisoner there with me who read to me from some of the tablets and from the inscriptions on the broken and fallen walls which were lying in the place. From this, I learned a little - as much as my dullness would allow, before I completed my task and had the last two pillars pulled down, as much as I hated to do it. Perhaps the worst was to see the old woman weep at what was done."

He turned to her, "So I must make my own apology to you, for as reluctant as I was, I had orders to complete the destruction, though to be fair, there was not much more to do. But I did learn, and so I know that you cannot do these things without cause, though there are other things which you can do."

He looked at her with a small smile, "A stupid, brutish beast I may be to one as lovely, proud and obviously powerful as you, but I am certain that if you could, you would already be gone and far from here."

He nodded once, "You have a very strong will and that is fine with me. I have the same sort of will myself. I try now to show you that you have no need of your loathing of me, for I have done nothing to you myself. I do have a small hope that you will let me have a turn to speak now and again and that you would listen, and if it is not too much to ask of you, I would like it very much if I could keep my sight and not have my hair in flames."

In spite of her predicament and her hatred, the priestess had to work at holding back the laugh that she felt coming to her from his words. After a moment, she began to curse him all over again.

He reached out and took her lead -- the single chain attached to her bound hands and walked away very slowly, mindful of her restrictions and began to lead her - still cursing - to another chamber. It took little effort on his part, but she knew that she had to follow or he would drag her and still use little of his obvious strength to do it.

He noticed that she paused as she looked around her, and he held up one finger.

"No spitting" he said. "None. Not once anymore in my presence. I do not know you, though I know of you and I cannot know how you came to be a slave. But I can see that it does not befit one such as you. Something like this is far beneath one like you, and I will not suffer it."

She spit in his face.

As he wiped her spittle off, she was a little disappointed that she hadn't caused any rage within him. She began then to ask him what he planned to do about it, but her vitriol was cut short when he picked her up bodily and dropped her into the deep bath. Before she could even move to reach the surface, she found herself staring at his face from very close up. He'd taken hold of her chains and pulled her half out of the bath and she hung in his grip where he held her, grasping the point where several chains crossed near her breasts. His voice remained steady.

"If you can calm yourself here and stop the rise of your indignation for but a moment or two, you may see that I mean you no harm at all. I have no need or want of a slave. I will not harm you. You stink, and it is not your fault, but I mean to have you sit at my table and eat with me -- and not as the slave that I have no use for, but as one who is as imprisoned as I am."

His face came even closer, "Until now, I have never kept a slave, but you have been given to me and I cannot change this, no matter what I might want. I will need to care for you when I am one who had only had to care for myself and the fighters around me. Use the mind behind those lovely and hate-filled eyes for a moment. I am trying to make the best of this for us both."

She began to draw herself together for another blast, but he pulled her even closer to his face -- to the point where almost all that she could see were his eyes.

What she saw then were the burning eyes of one imprisoned, just as she was though in a different way. She saw the scars of his battles even from this close up, and she felt his obvious might.

She lifted her chin proudly as she spoke, "How are you imprisoned, warrior? You live in this fine set of chambers and you have your things around you where everything was taken from me. You call me proud and I am, but I have little more than that left," she said with a sneer.

"How is it that you are imprisoned here? I fail to see it."

"I am but a poor fighter," he said, "this -- all of this has been mine for less than a day. For almost all of my life, all that I am, everything that I have ever owned had to amount to what could be carried on the same horse that I must ride into my next battle, wherever the army is sent and then all the way back again. I did some deed for which I am granted this place, but it has not changed what I am. I am a lowly soldier. It is all that I have ever been, and I can only be a lowly soldier until I die. And I will not die with my children or my wife grieving for me because I have no one. Who wants a fighter? Fighters do not grow old, do they? We die when we are just a little slower than one who we must face and no one grieves then."

He looked at her and she could see some sadness there. "I know but a little of what you were, though I yearn to know who you are now. If you could stop spitting and railing at me, it might come to you that I show you respect from one slave to another and even more because I have some small idea in my dim fighter's brain of what you have lost. You were given to me as a slave that I know only a little about, and that is by pure chance. I know nothing of what I could use you for. But I still wear chains, proud one. And my chains may be looser in how I am held, but they are still there, and they will be there until the moment after I am dead."

"You might have to serve someone now and you might have to do things which you do not want to do, but my chains drag me through sun and wind and cold into places where I have no wish to go, and when I get there, I must fight. To the death, I must fight killing as many as may come to me, and no one cares if I grow tired or how badly I may be hurt. At best some fool may bind my cuts together with a dirty rag and I dare not show that I might not be fit to fight again - even though I still bleed from the day before."

"I fight for a lord's will that I have no knowledge or understanding of because I am dull and no one would ever think to tell me of the reason because I am a stupid brutish beast, aren't I? What words of explanation are required for one such as me? They point, and I kill, or I am killed if I do not obey. Even if I obey, I know that one day I will be defeated. All this around us changes nothing. I am now to teach others when the army is not on the move, but the next time that we fight, I will still have to be there, no matter what my own will says to me."

He saw that the way that he held her was hurting her and eased her so that she might sit in the bath facing him. She struggled for a moment, but he shook her once then and his strength surprised her when she noticed that his other hand was on the rim of the bath. He was holding her up with only one hand.

"Stop this, if you have anything in your mind but your rage. Whatever you have suffered, I have done none of it to you. I fought in the army that vanquished your land, that is all, and I had no choice in it."

"I am trying here to offer the poor friendship of a trained and tired killer to a witch or a high-born priestess or, ... whatever you once were. You can howl at me all that you like, but it changes nothing here. We are trapped and shackled together no matter what we would like. Think. You might kill me, or I might kill you, and for what? I try here to offer you some kind of life, and though you will get no dignity from my kind, you will get much from me, if you would only allow it."

He pulled back a little and reached out to move some of her hair out of her eyes, "You are fine, and none of this befits you. I seek only to make this a little better for you. I want to share the little bounty that I am given, that is all."

He watched as she slowly tried to lower her head, looking cautiously at him the whole time, but she stopped and grimaced before sitting straight again.

"What do you try to do here?" he asked her.

"I have thirst," she said, "but I cannot reach enough to drink without falling over."

"Then sit but a moment," he said, "Do not drink this water here. It is not fit for you. I will bring you something."

"No," she said, "do not bother yourself for me, conqueror. I am nothing now, and this water is good enough."

He shook his head, "Water or wine?"

"What?"

He smiled a little, "I want to know what you would prefer to sip at first, and then fill your mouth with to spit at me. If it is all the same to you, I would prefer that you spit water on me."

It made her smirk. "As you wish, warrior. if you are this kind - and foolish, I will sip - and spit - water."

He was gone only a moment, pouring the water as quickly as he could and he'd done it that quickly on purpose. He heard the sound of the water and ran back quickly. He set the goblet down on the floor and reached into the bath to pull her up.

He knew that she'd try to drown herself while he was gone.

He pulled her partly over the rim and let her weight press on it so that she'd have to choke it out and breathe. As she began to retch, he pulled a towel over and gave her a target for it as he shifted his grip to hold her until she was done gasping. He set her back into the bath and rose up on his knees to hold her head on his shoulder against his neck. He glanced at the towel. It was what he thought that he'd see. Only a little watery bile. They hadn't fed her at all.

"No!" she coughed and struggled, "Let me go! I must die, I - I must, I - "

She began to weep bitterly. He stroked her back and her head. She still struggled for a time, but gave it up, knowing that he was easily strong enough to hold her here. She felt her face against his skin, her mouth against the side of his throat. She hated him for stopping her. She hated the warm scent of his neck.

She kissed him there and hated herself most of all.

The priestess opened her mouth and thought about it. With a little care, she reasoned that she might be able to bite through the artery that she felt under her lips. If she could hang on through his attempts to pull her off, he might weaken from loss of blood and then she could try to drown herself again and succeed.

But ...

She couldn't do it to him.

She sniffled wetly, "You do not understand. I have to die now or soon. The power is shared and I am in chains. I can do little to help." She sniffled again. "If you let me die, all the power goes to the one who needs it. It goes to the high priestess so that she might have enough to wield for the people. Please, let me die. I will only try again for another chance. I - " she sobbed, "I do not want to die after all of this, but this is the first chance that I had of it. - " The rest was muffled in her sobs against his neck.

The soldier found that he had tears in his own eyes for her, but only told her no. He told her that she had to live, and if he could, he would do anything to ease her suffering. She tried to argue as she wept. Somewhere in the middle of it, he moved his head and whispered to her.

"Stop, priestess. Give me time here."

He helped her to sit up and she stared as his tear rolled from his eye. He held her head, in both hands and stroked her temples gently with his thumbs.

"I cannot fight your hate of me and what you would do as soon as I turn my back. When you do not spit at me and curse me for what I have not done to you, you would see me dead by tearing my throat out with your teeth. I know this already. I knew it as you thought of it, and I did not move, fearing that you would fall and hurt yourself here in the chains that I want to have off you." He groaned, "I will not harm you. I want you to live, here. But I cannot fight you sixteen ways at the once - AND you will not listen to me. By the gods - by YOUR gods, give me but a chance here. Calm yourself and we will see what I can do. I even have words for you, but I want you calm and yourself before I say anything so that I know that you hear properly and without hate for a moment."

Her eyes widened. "What words?"

He looked down and then locked his eye on hers. "If you do what you think to do, you would make the largest misstep. You would give the lord here AND the king the greatest gift that could be given them." He leaned forward very slowly and kissed her forehead. When he pulled back, he said, "For all of your power, you are blinded in your hatred. You are wrong, Priestess."