Chapter 4 - Cast Out
The tavern in the little village of Gunoigramada was a small circle of warmth,
light and life in the cold howling darkness as the storm broke over the thatched
rooftops of the tiny huddle of rough-stone cottages.
***
It could smell the life, hot, flowing, vibrant. It hungered. It ached for that
life, for the taste, the smell, and the feel of it. But the light terrified it.
The light, and the noise - the laughter, the ribaldry, the bustle. All these
things struck terror into its dead cold heart. All brought dim, hazy reminders
of a life once known, of that warmth and companionship once shared. It longed
for those things, even as it longed to feed, but it knew it could never have
them again. It cowered in the crook of a branch, high above the tavern,
shivering, not with cold, because the sensation of cold was one to which it had
long since become accustomed, but with desire. It had been cast out, literally
hurled from its rightful place at Her feet, and into this dark world, full of
such delights and terrors. It still had the capability to feel regret, but not
to understand how it had displeased Her. It wanted more than anything to serve
again, to join with Her and bask in her approval, but the call of hunger was too
strident to ignore. A memory floated slowly to the surface of the murk that
filled its mind, vaguely recalling that the warm, glowing stone box beneath it,
unlike most stone boxes in the blackness, would soon be emptying. The life would
leave it and return to other stone boxes. The life would be happy, relaxed and
unwary...
Betiv raised an earthenware tankard to his fleshy lips, and took a deep long
draught of the dark brown nutty ale that foamed within. His coarsened features
were flushed with the effects of several tankards of the ale already this night,
which was no different from any other night. He swallowed and belched
pleasurably, looking sneeringly around the large room with its rough
stone-flagged floor and whitewashed walls.
It was packed with farmers, and farm labourers, all determinedly blotting out
another day of unremitting toil and tedium with the ale and the entertainment of
dice games or idle chat as they sat on the rough wooden benches arranged around
three sides of the room. They laid their tankards and flicked their dice on
crude wooden trestles. They were not particularly loud, coarse, or raucous -
everyone was too tired for that - but it was a brief period of relaxation and
companionship amid the drudgery of a peasant's life.
Against the fourth wall were the ale casks, into which each man occasionally
dipped his tankard, and made a mark on a slate beside it to indicate their
tally. This slate was watched attentively by the landlord, a large florid faced
man in coarse woollen trousers and tunic, with a leather apron tied over his
bulging pot-belly. He would be the first to admit that most villagers were
perfectly honest - the place was too small for much petty crime, but it was a
fact of life that one or two of the villagers would, when thirsty after a hard
day's work, occasionally forget to make their mark, leaving the landlord several
tankards to the bad, a loss he could scarcely afford. Like everyone else, he was
not a rich man, but the ale that filled the cups of his patrons was lovingly
brewed in his own cellars, and he was accountable to no-one except the tax
collector and the local landowner, who held title to his inn.
Betiv was not a popular man. He was a bully and a drunkard, and as a farm
labourer could more often be seen leaning on a pitchfork telling off-colour
jokes than doing an honest day's work. Talk in the village was also that he beat
his poor little wife after these nightly trips to the tavern. The other wives
were well-used to her excuses of slipping over and walking into doorposts when
they encountered her, and it did not take great intellect to work out that she
was either the clumsiest woman in the district, or that her oaf of a husband was
a little too quick with his fists. Of course it was none of *their* business,
and they merely counted themselves lucky that their own husbands did not raise
their hands to *them* -no more than was normal.
Given the dubious qualities of the man there was a universal raising of spirits
as he drained his tankard and banged it down on the trestle, causing the last
few drops of ale within to spatter onto the hand of his immediate neighbour, who
of course said nothing. There was little point in starting a fight now, and
Betiv never changed. He threw a few coins onto the scarred and pitted wooden
surface, then wobbled to his feet, and lurched towards the door without a word.
He put his thumb on the latch, and as it clicked up, the door blew open
violently, nearly bowling him over. He cursed profusely in a slurred voice.
Damned weather! Why hadn't the woman warned him of this storm? Well she was
going to pay for that when he got home. With that pettily vengeful thought
uppermost in his drink-addled mind, he weaved off into the night, leaving the
door swinging loose after him.
***
It sniffed, savouring the new and rich scent of life. The need almost
overwhelmed it, and all but overrode its fear of the light pouring out of the
new opening in the stone box. It watched, hunger gnawing at its insides, drool
pouring unchecked from between its lips as the life moved off into the turbulent
night. It was not a natural hunter, and there was no idea or plan in that vacant
mind as to how to bring the life down. There was however, the tiniest flicker of
awareness that it would have to be careful. If the other life saw it, it would
have no chance to feed tonight.
It slithered down from its perch, barely registering as the twigs and knots
abraded the pale flesh, creating fresh scratches to join the collection it had
already picked up this past day. The smell of its own blood assaulted its
sensitive nostrils, but the odour was cold, flat and unappealing. It needed the
hot fresh blood carried by the life that even now weaved through the darkness
below. Oh, so close, so close...Reaching the ground, it moved on bare silent
feet, over the soft muddy ground towards the wonderful delicious life...
***
The cellar was dark again, save for a solitary candle valiantly fighting to push
away the waves of darkness that threatened to overwhelm it.
She ought to return upstairs, join the living souls in this prison of Her own
making but, somehow, wanted to avoid the necessity for as long as possible. It
was not so much from a repugnance for mixing with people, for She rarely paid
attention to any save for Her housekeeper, and did not particularly consider Her
servants as "people" in any case. She had occasionally hosted tiresome dinners
for the local gentry, if only to maintain Her credibility amongst the
tightly-knit ranks of the country "nobility", and ensure the continuance of Her
solitude at all other times. On those occasions she was at Her best, elegant,
intelligent, the perfect hostess. But it was a facade, a shell. It reminded her
of times past, when the warmth and friendship seemed good, but now they were
nothing to her. On this night She felt tired - tired of this sterile
semi-existence, tired of the endless hunger, and the dark - Yes, tired of the
choking, swamping dark. Oh, for the kiss of the sun on Her pallid face again,
the cool breeze of a spring morning, the dew glistening on the grass, the
cornflower blue of a cloudless sky. In the curse of this endless existence, all
these things had been ripped away from Her. She had not asked to be as She was,
and was becoming weary of it. There had to be change...
***
Betiv mumbled sourly to himself as his errant body ineffectually struggled
against the winds that buffeted it. His course home was none too steady at the
best of times, but to his muddled senses it seemed the cruel vixen of a wind was
taking particular delight in sending him off on wild tangents. His house was at
the far end of the village, only half a mile from the tavern, but the giggling
harpy of a storm sent him crashing against darkened cottages, upended him in a
patch of nettles, which he barely felt, and with an evil gust at one stage
propelled him to his knees into something he didn't really want to think about,
especially once the smell hit him. With each frustrated step his temper grew
more vile, and the prospects for his poor wife became ever worse. It was after
he had been sent reeling headfirst into a tree that he saw her.
He shook his head, certain that something had been shaken loose by the heavy
blow. She was naked, or at least as good as naked to a man who had barely seen
his wife's ankles more than a dozen times. The shredded remains of some red
undergarments clung to her thin body, with more scraps trailing from her arms
and legs. It was almost pitch black with only the sullen glow from a moon
partially obscured by scudding clouds to illuminate her, so details such as her
emaciated condition, the dirty, tangled hair or the scratches and bruises that
marked her arms and legs were scarcely noticeable. Nor did he register the damp
earthy smell, like grave-mould, that exuded from her battered body. What he did
see were her rounded breasts peeped out through the rips in her bodice, and her
slender neck and shapely arms and legs. And her eyes! They almost burned with an
incandescence he had never seen before. She was beauty personified, and she had
come to him! A stupid leer spread across his ugly face. If she was the product
of his sudden collision with the tree then by god he ought to hit his head more
often! As she drew closer, he held his arms out in a drunken embrace.
***
Love? She vaguely remembered love. A man holding out his arms, to hold and draw
her to him. Yes love...warmth...passion...love... This life, this...*man*, loved
her, and was going to help her, in the only way he could. She smiled, and took
her new lover in her arms, drawing him to her in a long passionate kiss...
***
Margareta Betiv heard the scream, even above the banshee wail of the wind as it
forced its way through innumerable cracks and holes into her unkempt little
hovel. She shivered in superstitious fear, as well as cold. Only the good Lord
knew what roamed in the night outside. Thankfully her strong husband would be
home soon. He would protect her from whatever was out there. He was a good and
understanding man, even if her many faults forced him to discipline her more
than she would prefer. She smiled happily and snuggled down in her threadbare
blankets, waiting for her man.
