the Leathermines

Back to Chapter 20   -  Please support the Web Mistress with Tribute.

 

They had expected tears.  They had expected the darkness.  They had expected rage and anger.

Laun had felt better after being given clear water and having the blood washed from her into the sand outside their yurlodge.  She sat, the Peaches brushing her hair and cleaning what they had missed outside.  She had asked for several of their medicines, and for cold cloths for her twisted knee.  Other than that, Laun had not said anything or done anything.

It was eerie and concerning her people.

Laun was grieving.  Not just for Ulis.  For the assassin she had just killed.  For Wanda’s innocence.  For Rosemond and Iffy.  For her people.  For her children.

Laun was convinced that the attempts on Ifahyd would not be as bad, or numerous, if she had not been there.  Yes, they would have happened, but not like this.  Not this close.  Not taking out innocent people.

Laun smiled at her men when Daffyd and Gregg offered themselves.  She shook her head and went back to just looking at her hands.  Her hands.  The ones that had taken so many lives and had trained others to take lives.  The hands that had just held one of hers as she died.  The hand that held the blade to his throat as he chose to die.

She had a flash.  A flash of her childhood.  Her hand was skinning a rabbit, the fur matted with blood.  She remembered being frustrated with herself and the rabbit.  She was young and didn’t have the hand strength to do the job like the older kitchen servants and slaves.  It was her job, though.  Mother and Orgia had placed the knife in her hand and had let her fumble with it.

Laun remembered the frustration turning to triumph as she found how the skin pulled from the meat, letting the blade between.  People were like that, too.  Laun felt like her skin was being flayed from her, but from guilt, not a knife.

It was getting late.  Laun was quiet and withdrawn, easily able to just take a corner of one of the couches and close her eyes with few even looking her way.  She thought.  The Peaches in the yurlodge and outside were there for her.  She did not see them stop and listen when she sighed, her hand over her face as she again saw her woman in her arms, calling out to the darkness to take her.

Laun fell into troubled sleep before she knew she was tired.  There were snatches of nightmares.  There were scents and sounds, blood and screams.  There was the darkness calling to her, but she was drawn along and was in a place that the darkness it’s self feared to go.  In that place was...

She sat up, feeling as though her throat was about to be cut open, that she could not breathe because of the monster on her chest.  The light fabric that had been put over her bunched on her lap as she looked around.  There were ranks of her people sleeping around the couch.  Protecting her.  Keeping her safe.  But...also keeping the outside world safe from her.

The night lamps were lit, the low glow throwing shadows along the floor with the sleeping bodies that were there.  Laun had to pee, a fleeting smile across her face as the normalcy of it went against the horror of her life.  She made her way through the people, the sentry on the stairs nodding to her as she limped by.

Laun let her body empty it’s self into the glorified bucket and thought.  She was tired.  Physically as well as mentally.  Never knowing what was to come, and trying to keep the facade up of being Princess Laun, Mistress Hawkwell.

Laun leaned against the tall case that had been placed in the wet area.  She had to stop thinking of herself as Mistress Hawkwell.  She used her body, for pleasure and influence.  It worked, most of the time.  Right then, she felt raw thinking of sex, of fucking on any level.

It was not knowing who the enemy was that was getting to her.  When it was Engrid, she could point and know that Blue Master was behind whatever it was.  She still was, in a way, but the assassins that had gathered to take out Ifahyd were from everywhere and were unknown.

She started awake when a hand was on her arm.  The sentry had seen her fall asleep and knew that she needed to be taken from the pot before she fell.  He turned to give her some privacy as she used the little paper flowers on herself, coming up with blood on her hand.  She checked again and sighed.

It was one of the only things that was good about being pregnant.  Her body decided right then was the time to resume it’s monthly moon cleansing.  Blood moon, in more ways than one.

She used several of the paper flowers to pad a loincloth before climbing into the bed.  She looked at the center and saw it was crowded.  Laun took up an edge and found someone’s arm around her as they all settled back into sleep.

It was not rest.  Laun’s mind was showing her all the blood she had spilled, all the people that she had killed.  All the people who were killed because of her.  It started with Lady Hellon and ended with her.  Her own mother was there, Lennie wearing the red velvet dress with the arming harness beneath.  Laun had not remembered her mother in it as she saw her in her dream, the knives in the boiled leather bodice being placed by shadow hands as words were said over and over, Lennie repeating them back and smiling at Laun as she sat at her mother’s feet.

It was the midwinter feast where Lady Hellon had been entertaining some people from another country.  Laun was in awe of the different clothes, the accents, the skin.  Laun had been told to stay away from the Great Hall, to let the adults be for the night.  Laun had not listened, as any 8 year old would not.  She snuck in and sat in the shadow of the large fireplace near the head table, Lady Hellon and Lord Vami sitting together, but speaking to those around them, not each other.  Laun always loved listening to her Lady.  The slight accent she had would come out sometimes, making her voice almost musical.  At that feast, she was speaking another language and it sounded like she was singing.

Another language.  Laun’s adult ear heard the snatches that her child’s ear had caught.  It was Rosemond.  A mixture of the High Noble Rosemond language and the vulgare Rosamundi.  And a few others, too.  Laun could understand.

“Ambassador.  If your lands are so needy, then why do you export your goods to us and Myrned instead of using them yourself?”

The blond hair shook as he laughed.  “Hellon, you know by experience we make more than we could ever use.  We are a desert kingdom.  You need water to use our bathing preparations.”

Her child’s ear had heard him, her child’s eye had seen him.  Her adult body had seduced him.  Her adult body missed him.  Ithian turned from his conversation with Hellon and saw the child hiding in the shadow.  He smiled, the wicked glint she knew aimed at her.

“I knew you in Rosemond, Ithian.  I am happy you were appointed as Ambassador, but please, don’t taint your first visit to Salam-Dir with actual business of the Realms.  You are too young to be so serious.”

Ithian was still talking with Lady Hellon, the words sliding together into a sing-song.  Ithian was still looking at Laun, looking at the child and looking at the woman.

The dream split.  Laun could still see what had been as a ghost behind the form of the man before her.  He was also a ghost, but there was something he needed to tell her, needed to say.  He reached out to her as he flowed from his younger self to his older self, his hair darkening as he aged, the fine lines forming around his brilliant blue eyes.

The hand reached for her.  It held something, but was empty at the same time.  Laun tried to look away from the eyes that had captured her.  His hand came up and she could see-the peridot chips and the needles dipped in black.  They changed, but Laun thought she understood.  This was the first time she saw her Mother kill.  The feast was a lure, Lennie was the bait, the feast a distraction.  It was in her all along.  Laun just did not see what it was at the time.

There was the shout.  The dream-remembering was sharp.  The men stood, hands on weapons, some on where weapons should have been.  There was the rush, the clearing.  Her mother was crying, holding onto the hand of the man she was sitting next to.  He was convulsing.  He was dead.  Her child’s eyes saw the needle as her mother stood, a horrified look on her face, and threw the needle into the fire after she stepped away.  It was red tipped, but the rest of the needle had been the black of poison.

Laun’s adult mind tried to look at the man.  Tried to remember him.  Could not see clearly who he had been...

The brother Dougal never talked about.  The Nephew Falmir had mentioned once, with pain in his eyes.  Laun’s Cousin she had never met, but had met that very day he died in the Salam-Dir lands.  The young man who had nodded to her when she was behind Orgia’s skirt in the kitchen doorway.  The one with the Hawkwell nose, and the deep blue eyes.

Laun could not breathe as her child’s eyes saw the King’s son push to his Nephew’s side.  He was angry.  He was not to be consoled.  Laun saw him lash out, hurting those around him with fist and words.  His eyes went to Lennie’s back as she was being led from the Great Hall.

The words he yelled after her rang in her head as she woke, crying.  “You may dress as a Noble, but you will never be anything but a slave to be used, Dresden!”

Onto Chapter 22, where there is a change in leadership within the Peaches.