Chapter 38: Unwelcome Confrontation

The room was much smaller than her own – but beggars could not be choosy. There was a dry, stale smell inside the room, not unpleasant but different from her own room. The plastered walls were a warm shade of blue in contrast to the stark white she’d grown up with, but she could find no warmth in the room. Only worry and angst.

Bena wiped the cool cloth across Yren’s brow. It had been almost two weeks – twelve long days – since the ‘Battle of Hasp’, as the townspeople were calling the fight with the Red Guard. Yren had yet to wake up. He was alternately burning up from fever or so cold she feared for his life. For Yren, the voice whispering inside of her would not speak.

The implication was clear. Either Deia was unwilling to heal Bena’s brother, or he was beyond her goddess’ power to heal. The goddess offered no explanation. Neither thought filled her with hope.

It had taken time before some of the townsfolk had come to acknowledge the change within her. It had taken time for people to trust in it. It had taken time for her to trust in it.

Back in that burnt-out clearing, with its air befouled with soot and silt, Uud and Syl had scoffed when she’d objected violently as they tried to approach her fallen brother. She’d obstinately inserted herself in their path over and over, but they were intent on helping Yren. Only the memory of the Red Guardsman screaming with his hands nothing more than bubbling, rounded flesh, kept them wary. Neither Uud nor Syl was keen on ending up like the man. Eventually, after a concerted argument with Bena, they’d grudgingly acquiesced.

It had been Bena’s first failure as her goddess’ high priestess. No matter her pleading or praying, the voice remained silent when she looked to turn her power upon her adopted brother. Eventually, she’d had to give up. It hadn’t given the knights much confidence in her, though their looks were more weary than accusing.

Since she couldn’t heal him, they’d had to carry him to the town so she could nurse him until he regained consciousness. At Bena’s direction, Ataya and Uud had been sent deeper into the forest to gather branches and foliage. The wood was charred for several yards around the clearing, so it took some time. Once they’d gathered some sturdy branches, leaves and brush, they had to braid the brush together and tie it to the branches to rig a travois. Syl, meanwhile, was sent to pick up one of Jace Rivens’ horses. By the time the female knight returned with a horse, the travois was complete. It had fallen to Bena to roll Yren over and onto the crude sled.

It wasn’t easy. Yren outweighed her by a wide margin even without the added weight of his armor. Bena’s recent religious training didn’t include much in the way of exercise. Priests were sedate, composed people who seemed to care only about their own wealth and status – mostly their wealth and status in life with an occasional nod to things in the afterlife. Of much less importance, though at least discussed, were the needs of Tyln’s congregation, though those discussions were concerned solely with their needs after death. After all, devotion and poverty in this life would lead to riches in the next – and who better to take the burden of all that unneeded wealth than the Church of Tyln?

No, exercise was for the congregation! The priesthood was too busy with the heavy burden of directing all the unwashed masses into Tyln’s embrace after death to worry about their own corrupted flesh. At least, that was what she’d often been told, usually when being chided for running from one place to another. Regardless, she’d managed to survive, keeping her true faith secret.

Getting the big horse through the brush was likewise problematic, especially with the sled tied behind it. Worse, the horse had to go slow. Every bump and jostle threatened to tear the fragile travois apart. Ironically, the worst part was after the vegetation returned to being green and unburnt. Bena, Ataya and the knights could breathe easier without the ash and dust being blown and swirled by the lightest of breezes, but the greenery proved infinitely harder on the crude sled.

They returned Yren to town but faced a new problem – there was nowhere to put him. The town hall was gone, and the smithy had become a charnel house for the freshly dead. Even the thought of pulling him into the untouched house adjoining the smithy caused Bena to shudder. The dead bodies had already begun to stink, which was luring all manner of unwholesome bugs and insects. Instead, she’d unwillingly agreed to leave him against the carpenter’s shop across the street. As Oovert before, there were others who had needed her goddess’ grace. There were others she had actually been able to help, unlike Yren.

She wrung the cloth in her small pail of cool well water and then laid it on Yren’s brow. He was going through a feverish phase, and she could only hope the water would cool him. She kissed him softly on the cheek before standing up and turning to her second failure.

It was almost night before they’d found Teran. For whatever reason - superstition, disbelief or simple lack of time - no one had bothered to investigate the remains of the town hall until the waning of the day.

To be honest, there was too much to do to bother with taking stock of the town hall – which was obviously lost beyond repair. Most of the buildings within forty yards of the hall were severely damaged, some irrevocably. Much of the damage was from the blast but other damage seemed to be nothing so much as wanton destruction. It was as if someone had been intent on destroying the houses and shops by hand.

Shrapnel from the blast was found even to the outskirts of town. The buildings had to be assayed and a place found for people who’d lost their homes. Previously, they would have used the Town Hall for temporary shelter but that was impossible now.

Then, there were the wounded. Seven of the Viscount’s Guard had survived, though most with grievous wounds. Bena did her best to heal them while Syl and Gillen tried to raise some of the dead. Bena was going to tell them not to bother but she held her tongue. There was a sense of permanence about these things which she couldn’t quite understand. She felt without knowing why that those who died on that day would remain dead.

The knights’ repeated failures proved her instincts true.

The healing tired her. She quickly learned the grace came from Deia – the ability to heal at all came from the blessing of the divine goddess – but there was a part of her involved as well. The goddess’ benevolence was infinite, hers not so much. After the fourth Guard, she was breathing hard and wrapped in perspiration. By the seventh, she could barely stand.

She somehow found the energy to respond when Goodman Clerin called to them all from the ruins of the Town Hall. Amidst the wreckage and fire, amidst the dirt and filth and smoke, he had found Teran.

Bena wasn’t the first to arrive, so there was a small circle of people which she’d had to push her way through. No one approached her sister. The crowd just milled in place, standing there dumbfounded and in awe. The wreckage to the building was beyond severe – there was literally nothing left except for cracked, broken timbers and burning embers. The devastated timbers all led downward, the wooden beams seemingly bent down at an angle to the basement of the ruined building. They all led down to a small, perfect circle.

The circle wasn’t untouched, exactly. Incongruously, it was filled with grass and flowers – grass and flowers which couldn’t have grown there for decades or perhaps centuries, if at all. Nothing could have grown in the basement of the town hall – and yet there it was, grass and flowers blooming and bright. In the exact center of the pulchritudinous fecundity, sat her sister.

She didn’t wave. She didn’t smile. She didn’t move at all. It was as if she wasn’t aware of the people around her.

“It’s a miracle.” Bena couldn’t tell who said it first, but the words made their way around the small crowd quickly. She smiled involuntarily. Her goddess could be ostentatious when the circumstances warranted.

Like Yren, Teran didn’t get better. She hadn’t said a word since being found. Her blue eyes, while open when she wasn’t sleeping, remained vacant and unfocused. She wouldn’t move on her own, she wouldn’t stand or walk by herself, but she could be led. She wouldn’t eat on her own but would chew and swallow food if it was placed in her mouth. Likewise, she would only drink if the water was poured into her mouth.

Also, like Yren, the voice inside of her was quiet on how to help her sister.

“It’s time for your bath, Teran,” Bena said to her sister. She wasn’t sure why she bothered. Her sister never responded. She never acknowledged Bena at all.

Sir Givens had graciously offered to let them stay with him. At first, Elva had refused – she refused to leave the side of her husband at all, no matter the stench of the dead or the swarm of bugs. It wasn’t until Sir Givens had helped Channer and Goren move Ardt to the domen’s cold storage that she’d agreed.

The knight trainer wanted to bury Ardt, but Bena had held him off so far. She just couldn’t allow Ardt to be buried without Yren present. Besides, Elva wasn’t ready to say goodbye just yet.

“The longer you leave him out of the ground, the more difficult it will be to bury him,” Sir Givens had tried to explain just a few days ago. “It isn’t Ardt out there. It isn’t your father anymore. Yan teaches us that the spirits of the worthy are called to him when they fall in battle. Only the flesh is left behind.”

“I know,” Bena had smiled. The dichotomy of how she was treated grated on her nerves from time to time. Healing the Viscount’s Guard had netted her some renown. People came to her for matters of healing and never questioned her advice. On other things, she was still treated as a child. “Deia teaches us similarly. Now isn’t the time, however. Mother needs more time – and we can’t bury him without Yren. To do so would be cruel.”

She didn’t tell Sir Givens all of the truth. She didn’t tell him Ardt’s body would not rot. Deia had consented to place her grace on Ardt’s body and preserve it. Bena just wasn’t sure the former knight was ready to process the information. The old man could be quite inflexible.

Bena led Teran to the bath, undressed her and then helped her into the tub. She had to admit her sister was beautiful. She could see why Yren enjoyed laying with her.

Bena brought her hands to her sister’s large, firm breasts, gently stroking over them, hoping to get some response from her. As always, there was nothing. With a sigh, she continued for a few moments, trying to imagine herself with large breasts like her sister instead of the tiny hills she currently possessed.

She was surprised Teran didn’t have hair between her legs. After a few days, when stubble began growing in down there, she realized her sister actually went to the trouble of shaving her center. She couldn’t understand the concept – she kept wishing for hair to start growing on her soft mound and her sister was shaving it off! She added it to the long list of questions she had for Teran – when she woke up.

Cleaning Teran while remaining outside the tub was proving as difficult as always. With a sigh, she soon joined her older sister. She’d found bathing with Teran the easiest way to clean her. Of course, the domen hadn’t had a tub when they’d first arrived. The Givens family simply used a trough filled with cold water. It was actually a part of the training that most of his trainees complained about, but Sir Givens felt it was necessary to toughen the men and women he taught. The practice continued on to his family because he was unwilling to force his apprentices to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself.

Elva pointed out he was not teaching her or her children. The argument had lasted the better part of an hour – but Elva got her way. Every time Sir Givens tried to make a point, Elva managed to turn it around on him. Finally, the older man had just walked away, muttering to himself with his hands in the air.

Bena took notes. She was sure the technique was going to come in handy one day.

The younger girl studied her older sister speculatively as she washed her. She could literally feel the child inside of Teran even though it wasn’t much larger than her fingernail. She knew this couldn’t go on, Teran needed to be brought out of her fugue state for the sake of the baby if nothing else, but Bena didn’t know how to help the older girl. She just had to have faith her goddess wouldn’t have brought Teran and her baby back if she was just going to take her again.

“How are Yren and Teran?” Elva asked Bena a few hours later.

The girl crawled into her bed and pulled the covers to her chin before answering. Yren and Teran were sleeping in Andwynn Givens’ room while Elva and Bena were using Arclad Given’s old room. Andwynn was sleeping with Bremer. Though a third bed had been brought into Arclad’s room for Elva’s middle daughter, Issa had yet to leave Chugad’s side.

New wood was needed to reinforce and rebuild houses and furniture. Unfortunately, with the death of Goodwoman Masick, Hasp was running short on woodsmen. No one had ever replaced Bayan Durthwight, Vana’s husband, when he’d died. Only Goodman Tedorf remained, though Vana had volunteered to assist him.

Goodman Tedorf had accidentally stumbled upon Chugad Lewen on Secondday. He was passing Farthwight Hill just outside of the town, looking for more fallen trees or trees he could bring down, when he noticed something strange on the top. What with some Red Guardsman still being unaccounted for, he wasn’t foolish enough to investigate on his own. Rather, he’d headed back into Hasp and reported what he’d seen to Sir Givens. At Sir Givens insistence, he’d lead the former knight, along with Gillen Hawksley and Syl Troef, back to the hill where the four had found Chugad crucified, naked and half-dead.

Word spread quickly as Sir Givens carried the poor man to the old town administrator’s house. The house had been re-opened and was housing the Furgot and Maewise families. Both the Furgots and Maewise were weavers and their houses had been hit particularly hard by the Red Guard’s vandalism. Luckily, the house was rather large and still had an empty bedroom. Chugad had been exposed to the elements for days and was in very bad shape.

Bena wasn’t sure how the bard could still be alive. Every one of his fingers were broken and his hands had been crushed. His left arm was broken above and below the elbow and the bones of his right arm stuck out of his skin near his wrist. At the point where the bone extruded through the skin, the flesh and blood were black where rot had set in. One of his feet dangled where the ankle had been crushed while all of the toes of the other had been cut off. The man’s jaw hung where it had been carefully broken on both sides of his face and his teeth had been broken off or otherwise removed. They had probably been punched out based on the bruising around his face. Only one of his eyes remained, the second had been crushed in the socket. The rest of his body was a latticework of bruises and cuts, some of them quite deep and apparently made with a blade of some kind.

And, of course, his manhood had been removed. The site of the incision removing it had been cauterized with fire.

Somehow, Bena had managed to save him but not without cost – both to herself and to him. The goddess’ grace wasn’t a panacea. It could heal but only as well as the person doing the healing. Bena’s training as a priestess of Tyln had included anatomy but it was far from complete. She knew enough to heal Chugad but not enough to heal him well. She found herself relying on Deia’s voice within her more than her own knowledge in the healing arts.

The damage to the man was extensive and healing him nearly drove Bena unconscious. After more than an hour of maintaining Deia’s blessing on him, Chugad pulled out of the woods. She managed to knit his arms and hands, but it was unlikely he’d ever regain his former ability to play the lute. At the very least, he would never play as well as before he’d been tortured. He’d walk, but not without a limp and definitely with some pain. Re-growing his eye was beyond her, though she tried to follow along as Deia’s voice instructed. Re-growing his toes and teeth were likewise a lost cause. She didn’t even bother to attempt re-growing his manhood. In short, he was healed but there was still pain. There would also be many scars and he would never be who he once was. Even his voice was changed, gravelly and hoarse. Bena couldn’t know if he’d ever sing again.

From the moment he’d returned, Issa had been by his side. She waited on him hand and foot and slept in a chair in the same room. Issa rarely left Chugad’s room. She absented herself from his side only when no alternative presented itself, such as the few minutes it took to relieve herself.

Chugad himself was not as attentive. Besides visiting the outhouse, he refused to leave the bed and his words, even to Issa, were short and given with snarls.

It was when Bena was leaving that first day, Issa dragging the chair to set it beside Chugad’s bed, that she’d noticed it the first time. She was weary and almost broken, barely able to stumble from the room – but she knew what she felt. As Issa sat down, her hand clutching at Chugad’s, Bena could feel four lives in the room instead of three. She didn’t have the heart to tell her slightly older sister. The young woman was troubled enough with Chugad’s health. Issa would find out soon enough on her own.

Or maybe her older sister already suspected and that was why she refused to move from Chugad’s side.

“Bena?” Elva asked, concern etched on her face. The repeated question drew Bena back from her thoughts.

“The same,” Bena answered her mother wearily, her heart heavy with the burden of knowing truths she couldn’t share. “Yren won’t wake up and Teran won’t take notice of her surroundings.”

“Do you know why you can’t heal them? I mean, you’ve healed so many of the others – it seems strange you can’t do it for your family.”

Bena shook her head. “The goddess won’t answer those questions, Momma. I’m not certain why.”

She stared at the ceiling for a bit. Arclad’s room was done in a light gray. It reminded her of clouds – but not light, fluffy, happy summer clouds. It reminded her of storm clouds threatening on the horizon. “I think it might be – well, I don’t think they’re sick. I mean, not physically. I think – I think the problem might be in their mind. I think they’ll return when they’re ready.”