Cicatrix
Part IV. Soldiers, Deception, and Rejection
Rachel stomps through the back door the tavern kitchen, her face and shawl covered with yellow, sticky slime. She shoves her way past the big woodchopper, who is helping himself to a sizeable chunk of bread and a piece of cheese. “Shut up,” she snarls.
She slinks into a small washroom. She unwraps her shawl and begins washing her face and hair. There is a small vent near the ceiling, and Rachel can hear voices.
Outside, two soldiers are urinating against the wall. One soldier says, “It isn’t fair. If those bounty hunters get to him first, they’re set for life. If we take him, we get a bag of salt. And they don’t need to take him alive.”
The other soldier says, “Make no mistake, we will get him first, and his end will come soon enough. After the Sheriff tortures him to find out where it is.”
* * *
The next morning Rachel crawls into his hut and shakes him awake from a deep, smothering sleep.
He opens his one eye. “You ...” he moans. “God’s hooks! What do I have to do…?”
“I came here to warn you,” she says. “Shut up and listen.”
From a distance he can hear the distinct clang of metal coming up the trail. Swords and armor! He sits bolt upright.
“Soldiers! They followed you! I am undone!” He lunges at her, but Rachel dodges. She leaps on top of him and clamps her hands across his mouth.
“I came here to warn you, you dolt! Calm yourself or we will both be undone. Now I want you to flatten out on the bed. I am going to pull this poor excuse of a blanket over you and lay on top like you don’t exist. If you make even a peep we will be worm’s meat.”
He does not know what else to do. There is no time to think. There is no other choice. He lays flat and she tosses the tattered blanket over him.
Then, with the palms of her hands, Rachel smacks her face until her eyelids puff with redness. She dusts her hair with a handful of ashes from the fire pit and streaks her face with a piece of charcoal. Then she pulls her shawl tight around her shoulders and plops down on top of him.
“Ooof!” he moans.
“Sshhh!” she whispers.
= = =
Outside, soldiers surround the hut. The Sheriff calls out, “Come out and present yourself! I am the Sheriff of the Canton!”
Nothing. Silence.
The Sheriff motions to the Sergeant. The Sergeant kneels at the entrance to the hut and yells inside. “Come out and present yourself!”
“You come in,” groans Rachel in a voice of misery. “I am too weak to come out.”
The Sergeant hesitantly pokes his head inside. In the dim firelight, he can see Rachel’s sickly face. “We are looking for a man,” he says.
She coughs and chuckles to herself. “How odd that you would ask. You have found nothing here but an old woman on her sickbed.”
The Sergeant glances around nervously. “There is no man here? We were told that a one-eyed man dwells here.” He points to a book. “What is that?”
She coughs hoarsely. “That is where I learn my potions.” She picks up the book. “I will read,” she says. “Here it tells how to make a man impotent for life. It says: Take the root of the nightshade plant, boil it by the dark of the moon, add the powder of a goat’s horn and sprinkle it on the man while he sleeps.”
She looks up at the Sergeant. “Perhaps you would like to come sit beside me while I read.”
The Sergeant backs out through the doorway. There is a brief discussion outside, and the soldiers are quickly gone.
= = =
Rachel sits up. She tosses the threadbare blanket aside and smiles victoriously, holding up the book.
The one-eyed man is amazed. Speechless. Completely befuddled. All he can do is look at her puffy face streaked in charcoal. She puts down the book, tosses her head backward, and shakes the ashes from her hair. His eyes drift down to her neck.
He sits up. “My name is Cicatrix. Now you must go,” he says.
“So soon? I was just getting warm.”
“Get out,” he says softly. “Godspeed. Thank you.”
She unfastens her shawl.
He picks up a book, reclines on his bed, and pretends to read. “Please, get out,” he says.
She leans over next to him and whispers in his ear, “The monks tell me that reading makes their eyes dim.”
He sits bolt upright. “GET OUT!” he shouts. “At least I can read. Potions! That manuscript was from Imperial Rome! And you were holding it upside down!”
Rachel stares at him and loosens her blouse.
He can see the tops of her breasts. “Get out,” he pleads.
She stares into his eyes. “Someone must have really left you out to dry. Didn’t they?
“GET OUT!” he shouts. He grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her violently.
He stops.
She is staring right into him, breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling. She clenches her teeth, then shoves him backward onto the bed and pounces on top of him while bringing a knee sharply into his groin and pounding her fists against the sides of his head. Her knees pin his shoulders, her hands clutch his throat.
“Now you listen to me!” she screams. “And then I will be done with you! You are a waste! Romans! They are all dead! But I am alive! And I stuck my neck out for you, you jackass!”
She crawls toward the doorway, then turns back. “To hell with you! But you are already in hell. Right here!”
She balls up her fists. Tears are streaming grey ash down her cheeks.
“You threw eggs at me!” she sobs, then scrambles out the door.
* * *
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(Go to Part V: Inspiration, Salt, and Luck