The Song of Gaál - Fifteen

*** Warning ***
Picture Intense ^_^

Sensitive situations

Violence; Nudity;

Hard R Rating

Please do not read if you are easily disturbed.

(All characters, places and events reside solely in my imagination.)

The Song of Gaál

…....... Fifteen ….......

Kisertet's estate bordered the Suiken River. The Suiken River itself originated high in the mountains that towered over Castle Sotete, a seven days' ride from the estate. Slowly making its way through Kisertet's lands, the Suiken River lost its monstrous churning rapids this far from the falls. A small brook fed by the river tumbled lazily through the western yards. Cassava knew the land well, having lived in the manse and walked in the yards for nearly four years. The lands were lush and fertile, feeding orchards and willow trees, the kitchen garden and the simples garden. After a rain, the collective moisture would form into a low fog that crept along the river and brook, sweeping low across the grasses and circling the house. Cassava found that when the fogs wended through the trees and gardens, surrounding the manse itself, the cut stone manse appeared to be lifted from the grounds, floating to the heavens and the stars.

Tonight the grounds were clear. The fogs stayed wherever fogs stayed on dry days. Few lights flickered in the windows of the great house. A slow swirling stream of smoke from the chimney lifted to the sky, illuminated by the full moon. The light grey stones of the manse reflected moonlight where the stone cutters' work left a near glass surface on the rock. Years it would have taken to build this house, the age unknown and the original master long gone. Kisertet stayed here since the marriage of Malika to Levente. Cassava frowned and shook off the ghosts of his thoughts. He waited near the western side of the manse, watching the path from his place beneath a large hydrangea. Cassava saw Levente and his two men approach the manse and enter the stables. He waited for Levente and his men to enter the house. Only Levente made his way to the door, having left the two men to care for the horses.

Cassava grit his teeth, an angry gleam in his eye as he rubbed his left wrist to redness with his right hand. He could not go in now. He could not assure himself Mirriam was well. He could only trust that Kisertet would not deface his friends' memory, Mirriam's parents, by allowing Levente to take Mirriam. The thought caused Cassava's blood to chill and he shivered.

Levente mounted the stair and was received by the opened door. Cassava moved through the shrubs that nestled close to the stone walls. He made his way around to the eastern wall, crawling low until he reached the stone step of the back entrance. He glanced up at the small window that was in Mirriam's room. Dark. Let her be sleeping, he willed.

He continued along the edge of the house, he could hide under the stone bench Kisertet had brought in for Mirriam. She would sit and work her stitches or write her letters while he and Kisertet practiced swords in the yard. Until Eszerbet came. When Eszerbet came, Mirriam had no time for herself, rather, she would be chasing after the rebellious baby that Kisertet claimed was his own.

Looking in through the dark window pane, Cassava could see only the flickering fire from the center room, Levente and Kisertet were not in the hall as he had hoped. If the men were in the center room, he would have less chance to hear words spoken between them. Moving to the door, he gently pressed the latch, finding it unbarred from the inside. 

The great door swung in silently and Cassava stepped low and through, squeezing himself as small as possible to prevent drafts. He heard the voices. They were in the center room. Kisertet's slow smooth voice sounded to be placating an unruly child. Levente's rumbling voice was loud with his angry reply to words Kisertet spoke. 'Please, Ana, be safe,” Cassava wished, only thinking his silent name for her, the little girl he was told was his responsibility to keep well. He needed to get to the back stair. He needed to reach Mirriam's room to be certain she was there. The need to see her welled into his heart till it felt as though it would burst. The words from the center room tumbled one over the other and lost meaning. Cassava started to creep along the outer wall toward the kitchen stair when his name spoken in a spitting rage caused him to stop. He darted to the sideboard and hid in the shadow at its side, listening.

Levente raged on to Kisertet. “I saw him, Gaál! You show me where the body is. I saw the boy!”

“Listen to me,” came Kisertet's calm reply, spoken in his smooth, silken voice, “I burned the body so that it could not be found. There is naught left but ashes that I am sure have been consumed by fish. Perhaps were you to catch a salmon, you would have the boy again.” Cassava could hear the sarcastic smile adorning Kisertet's face. Levente stomped and growled, his reply not comprehensible.

“Calm down, Levente,” Kisertet continued, “even had I not burned it, it has been so many years, any remains would not be recognised. I assure you, brother, you did not see that boy. Cassava is dead.” He stated, his authoritative voice forcing finality.

Minutes passed during which Cassava only heard the faint crackle from the fire in the other room. The house was still. The long silence was broken by Kisertet, “Tell me truly what brings you here tonight, Levente? You left but a few days ago and I find you at my door at night speaking of ghosts.”

“It was not a ghost.” Levente stated in a defeated tone.

Boots shuffled. Glass tinkled. The faint sound of liquid being poured carried to the hall. “Here, brother, you do look as though you have seen the dead.” A pause. A boot step on the wooden floor. “How is my dear sister these days, Tolvaj?” Cassava held his breath.

“Fine that you should ask now, where were you when the baby went missing? And Malika, barren as barren can be. Did you know that Gaál?”, Levente growled, “Did you know you left me no means for an heir?”

“What has that to do with me?”, came Kisertet's reply.

“You made the bargain!” Levente exclaimed. “You promised your sister in return for my agreement with your plan. You ...”

Kisertet cut off the words, his voice raised in timbre that indicated his anger, “I had no means of knowing Malika was barren, Levente. How would I have known that? If your precious heir is so important, have one on the maid, she is willing enough.”

Levente replied with biting anger, “Ursula swung from the tree in the yard the morning after the infant disappeared.” 


Cassava blinked. She wanted her child. She cried for her child. He caused her death. 


“The girl is too young, the villages have no others of an age suitable.” Levente's voice filled with loathing. “I will not molest a child, Gaál, unlike others on your sacred lands.”

Silence.

“Odd,” Levente continued, his rough voice taken to a deadly quiet tone, “the infant grew dark hair, Gaál, much like yours.” Cassava gripped his wrist until his fingers numbed. “Have you no care for the infant, Gaál? Was it yours? Did you take it? Kill it?”

“Why should I care for a pauper's child, Tolvaj?” Came Kisertet's silken, terse reply. Cassava heard an undertone of tension in the voice that he knew well.

“You cannot tell me you were not with her,” Levente stated. “You cannot say that the child was not yours. No one else was she with but you, you scoundrel!”

“It is of no importance to me,” came Kisertet's response.

“No! Nothing matters to you, Gaál,” Levente spit, “except your precious castle! Where is my return? You use my lands, my gold, my guard, when will this endeavor come to fruition, Gaál!?! I am anxious for the end! To be rid of your curse!”

Kisertet's response was gentle as though to coax a reluctant horse to obey. “You, Sir, have a landlocked castle. You, by my tolerance, will receive what was promised. Now go. Leave. This visit is over.” And Kisertet escorted an angry Levente to the front door.

An hour easily passed. Cassava stayed curled in the shadow against the sideboard in the hall. His ears and thoughts reverberated with the conversation he overheard. Nothing made sense.

“Come out now, Cassava,” Kisertet's voice called from the center room.

Cassava blanched. He should have known that Kisertet would not miss his arrival. He stood and allowed the blood to refill his legs. He walked the longer way to the room, allowing his legs to become steady after sitting curled for so long. Kisertet stood near the mantle, watching the entry to the room. Cassava rubbed his wrist and looked up at the man's menacing smile.

“Come in, by all means, come in, little ghost,” Kisertet sweetly invited. Cassava's throat worked and he stepped forward. Kisertet's patience ceased to exist and he crossed the floor in two steps, grabbing Cassava's left wrist and slapping his knuckles against Cassava's face.

“Do you have no regard for what I have taught you!?! You were seen! And by Levente of all men! What were you thinking?” Each line punctuated by the sound of hand to face as Kisertet slapped the left side with his knuckles and the right side with his palm. Cassava clenched his fist and averted his eyes, a grimace on his stinging face. “Remove yourself from my sight.” Kisertet growled, pushing Cassava so that he stumbled and fell back. “Go!”

Cassava stood and made his way to his room. His face burned painfully, his knuckles white from clenching his hands. He squinted with anger and punched the door with all of his might, doing nothing to calm his fury. Yes, he was seen. Yes, he was not careful. Yes, he called this punishment on himself.

He forced an exasperated breath. His hit to the door did not even give him the satisfaction of a dent in the heavy wood, just redness on his fingers. He shoved open the door and abruptly stopped. Ana... Mirriam. She stood in his room, her eyes wide and frightened, her hand to her mouth, slightly trembling. He watched her blue eyes quiver in their tear bath and hated himself for scaring her so. She was safe. He felt a lightening of his heart.

She tentatively approached him, raising her hand to his cheek, where Kisertet's knuckles had reddened and bruised the skin. 

Cassava flinched from the contact and she dropped her hand quickly, having seen the scowl on Cassava's face. “He hurt you,” she whispered, her voice shaking.

“No.”

“Your face,” she said, reaching her hand out again. Cassava turned his face away from her, his eyes fixed on her tiny toes. How does she walk?

“Cassava,” Mirriam sighed, “I was afraid for you. I was so,” her breath caught... Cassava looked up. She composed herself, biting her lip. Her tears fell, “... so afraid … that... that you would not come back. And they were... they were loud, and I heard... I heard... ” Cassava watched in a spellbound moment as she crumpled to the floor, sobbing quietly, all the while pangs of guilt slammed into him.

To see her on the floor crying for him thickened his throat. He leaned down toward her, taking her arms and lifted her up, guiding her to the bed. 

His face reflected the anguish his mind felt and he swallowed hard to push back the growl that threatened to erupt. Kneeling before her, he took her hand. “Mirriam, I am here, I am not hurt, do not cry.” She sniffled and rubbed her eyes with her free hand, leaving the other in the gentle cradle of Cassava's own.

He did not know how to help her, to reassure her, to have her stop crying. The only thing he knew to do was cause hurt. He only knew to make others angry, to upset them. He could surrender to her punishment if she hit him, but the tears, he could not withstand. This small girl had not a wicked thought about her. She accepted what was before her as truth and promise.

A flash of Eszerbet's angry, jealous, spoiled habits came to him, so opposite Mirriam. Mirriam coddled the child, and he understood now, because Eszerbet was really just a baby, tossed to the world. And he did that to her. He himself. Three years to his eleven, she was, barely weaned. Mirriam, Ana, she was a baby as well. Seven years only. A little girl who never asked for herself, whose family was taken from her, and who was tossed into his life carelessly. He failed. She cried.

Mirriam's eyes were watching him while his thoughts wandered too many paths on their own. “Will you sing to me, Cassava?” He blinked. Dark eyes dropped to a hand, a dark hand, holding small pale fingers loosely. He stared at the two hands and sang quietly, soft words meant to guide safe journeys in dreams. Wrapping Mirriam in song, he bid her to sleep there on his bed. “You as well.” She told him. And who was he to refuse this girl who cried her tender tears for him.