The False Martyr (62 page)

It only took seconds for
her resolution to fail. Her hands came to her face, one to cover
the deformity in her lip, the other to hide her red eyes. “You’re
supposed to run,” she nearly begged, voice rising as much as
possible through her pain and humiliation. Cary noticed now the
distortion of her words created by the break in her lip, the heavy
lisp that affected otherwise nearly perfect use of the Imperial
tongue. “There is no more to see. Just go away. Leave me alone.”
She paused and adjusted herself on the bed, wincing from the pain
she still felt. She turned her face away and hid it in her hands.
“Just go away.”

Cary felt the adrenaline
rush from him in an instant, leaving him trembling.
She wants me to run, wants me to forget. She’s
afraid. She’s humiliated. She’s not going to report
me
.

Relief washed over him.
Guilt followed.
What about her? I can’t
just leave her.
The thought spurred
memories that he’d spent nearly ten years trying to bury.
It’s Allysa all over again
. He flashed unbidden to the image of her battered
body.
Had it been like this? Had he done
this to her?
His teeth clenched. He fought
those images, made them go away, reminded himself of the lesson
he’d learned.
It IS just like
Allysa.
She’s just like her. She doesn’t
want your help. They never do.

The hidden door opened
slowly. The girl spun and looked at him in terror as he emerged.
Pulling back the hood of his robe, Cary locked eyes with her, saw
Allysa. She had looked at him exactly the same way when he had
found her. He hated the girl for making him remember that.
They’re the same. Just watch.
“By the Order, I can’t believe what he did to you,” he lied,
forcing his voice to tremble. “You can’t let him . . . . You need .
. . . I’ll get help. I’ll tell Nyel. We’ll make sure he never . . .
.” He’d said all the words before, would never forget them no
matter how he tried. And he knew exactly where they’d
lead.

“
No!” the girl nearly
screamed. Her eyes became desperate.

Cary forced himself to
look concerned even through his vindication.
All she has to say is yes. I’m right here. I can help her,
but she won’t because she wants what she gets. Just like Allysa.
Just like Mrs. Polk – How many times did mother offer to help her?
How many times did she beg her not to say anything, not to do
anything?

“
I don’t . . . there is no
. . . . I am . . . I would be . . . cast out,” the girl rambled.
Tears formed in her eyes. She stammered as if Cary held her very
life in his hands. “Please, don’t tell anyone. Please . . . I will
do anything. I . . . I . . . . Zhurn will kill you.” She latched
onto the last with the desperation of a drowning man finding a
log.

The words were so familiar
that Cary nearly staggered.
Don’t tell.
Please, you can’t. Father will throw me out. He’s the son of a
duke. He’ll kill you. Please, I’ll do anything.
Cary shook his head to clear the images.
You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,
he reminded himself.
In
a fire, heroes burn and carpenters profit.
Wasn’t that what his father always said? He’d spent enough of
his life being a hero, of getting burnt for people who didn’t want
to be saved. After Allysa, he had resolved to be the
carpenter.

The one thing he’d learned
from his sisters was how to find the girls who will do anything to
feel loved, the girls who will go with any man who looks at them,
who says a kind word, who pays them the slightest attention. He
found them in every town he visited. They were usually the ugly
girls, scrawny, awkward, stupid. They lived their lives with
insults, were defined by rejection and neglect. Some were abused –
never like this, but the end was the same. All they wanted was to
feel special, and Cary knew exactly how to do it, and exactly what
reward he would get in return.

Though he was handsome in
a way, Cary was also short and slight, his features dainty like the
rest of him. He looked more like a china doll than a man. A
beautiful woman might have him for a friend, the cute confidant
that she barely considered a man. But to a girl who had been
scorned, abused, rejected, neglected, his pretty face and kind
words made him the most attractive man they had ever met. And they
never had the confidence to say no, to risk losing the one man who
paid attention to them, smiled at them, complimented them, made
them feel special. And wasn’t it better that they find that in him
rather than the bastards who beat them, insulted them, used them at
night and scorned them in the morning? And if he should profit? At
least he was kind while he was with them, kissed them before he
rode from town, never insulted them or hit them or forced
them.

He approached the bed,
watching the girl as he came: beautiful, broken, perfect. Even with
the deformity, she might be the most beautiful woman he had ever
been with. Still, she was just like all those others. If she put up
with that bastard of a husband, she’d have anyone. Some attention,
a few nice words, and she would be his. He would be the first
outsider in history to bed a Morg woman. He would be a
legend.

For a long time, he just
watched her. She did the same, eyes trying to be strong but
betrayed by pain and humiliation so long established to have left
her with almost no strength to show. She had caught him in a
terrible crime, had him red-handed, held his very life, the fate of
his nation and everyone he loved in her hands, and yet he was the
one with power over her. His very presence was forcing her back
through everything that had just happened, was making her consider
it through the eyes of this interloper, making her live it anew.
Cary waited, allowed those thoughts to fester, allowed her find the
bottom. Carpenters always tear down before they build.

“
I . . . I won’t say
anything,” he said slowly, making it seem as if he were still
debating. “I promise.” For a flash, he remembered what he had seen
and felt all the shame for having participated in it, for having,
at some horrific level, enjoyed it, for taking advantage of it. He
shook off the thought just as fast.
She
doesn’t want to be saved,
he reminded
himself
. This is the best thing you can do
for her.
“I promise,” he repeated more
strongly and watched her tension ease. “How did you know I was
there?” he asked, wanting only to get her talking. His voice was
gentle, sympathetic, sad. His eyes darted strategically to the red
gap in her lip. She caught him and brought a hand to it.

“
I just knew,” she said
from behind her hand. She turned to the wall, shifted her body on
the bed to close it from him.

He sat next to her and put
a hand on her back. She flinched. “What’s your name?” he asked,
feeling her warmth through the wool, watching the curve of her
breast, white expanse of her neck, golden hair, ruddy cheek, and
unmarred half of her lips. She was slightly taller than a typical
woman with a slim figure that had been filled by her child. She
would be taller than him, might weigh more, but that was no
hindrance to him.

“
Noé,” she sighed. “I am
Mother of Eselhelt Lodge.” She said the title as if an
apology.

Cary moved his hand on her
back, used the other to brush a strand of hair away from her face.
She recoiled.
We’ll have to get past
that.
“My name is Cary Lanark. I am a
corporal in the Liandrin Royal Couriers, and I think you are
beautiful.”

Noé laughed, a sharp,
bitter chuckle. “You’re a liar and a spy. I don’t know which is
worse.”

“
I am both of those
things, but neither right now. I promise, you are the most
beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

“
Stop it!” she shouted
loud enough to make Cary jump. “Why taunt me? Do you think I’ve
never seen a mirror? I know how horrible I am. I have heard every
insult. Here have your look and see if you can find a new one.” She
brushed him off and turned, drawing her lips apart to highlight the
crevice that marred them. It ran on through her lips to split her
teeth and the top of her mouth, a great chasm that cut through her
beauty like a worm in an apple. It took all his will, but Cary kept
himself from retracting, kept his attention focused on her blue
eyes.

“
If Zhurn hadn’t chosen
me, I’d be a yuté.” She cried her words when Cary did not give her
what she wanted. “No man would ever join me. If the Order Master
had not saved me, I would have been left for the wolves as a babe.
I was never meant to be. I should not even be here. I have no
place, but Zhurn, he . . . .Zhurn . . . he . . . he saved me. He
gave me a child. He has elevated me more . . . more than anyone
like me could ever deserve.” She held the child insider her. “I . .
. I should be grateful.”

“
But I . . . I don’t
understand. I am an outsider, but I don’t understand how he can
treat you like that. I thought Morgs revered their
women.”

“
I get the reverence I
deserve,” she told the wall more than him. “I defied him, and he
punished me. He knows I deserve shame so that is what he gives me.
If my sisters knew . . . .” she caught herself, voice cracking.
“Look at me,” she blurted after a pause. “I am horrible. I don’t
deserve to be alive, but he’s made me Mother of our lodge. He could
have taken anyone, but he picked me. He has given me everything, so
why can’t I just do what he says?”

“
He should be grateful,”
Cary whispered. “You are beautiful. Men would fight to their last
breath to treat you like the queen you were always meant to be.”
Cary realized as he said the words that he had gone too far – the
girls most dying for compliments are the first to see through the
false ones.

Noé laughed again, but it
was hard and humorless. “So what, you will seduce me? Is that who
you are? You think to bed an ugly Morg girl with a few frilly
words?” She turned on him, voice rough with emotion. Cary cursed
himself for being caught but knew better than to think that it
changed anything. Nearly every girl he had been with came to this
same conclusion.

“
So you think because you
have a split in your lip that you must be treated like less than
you are?” Cary ignored her accusation, allowing it to linger, an
offer tabled for later, and turned the discussion back to her. “You
are the Mother of a lodge. How can any man treat you like that? I
thought he was going to kill you the way he pushed your face into
the mattress while he . . . .” Cary trailed off, having made his
point. Still, the images came back to him of the huge hand pressing
her face into the sheets to muffle her cries. For a second, it was
Allysa. His resolve trembled then strengthened.
At least I’ll be nice to her.

“
His passion overwhelms
him,” Noé snuffled, obviously remembering the same thing and
somehow trying to convince herself that even that was her fault.
“He buries my face so he won’t have to see it. Sometimes, he . . .
. Can you blame him?” She turned away, unable to maintain the lie.
Her eyes were wet, cheeks stained with tears, nose red and running.
There was a pause. Cary somehow knew that now was not the time to
fill it. “It could have . . . should have been worse,” she
continued, voice catching. “I . . . I deserved worse. He could have
made me . . . . I mean . . . he has made . . . I mean, I have . . .
it doesn’t matter . . . I did them. I did things that no sister
would ever do. If they knew, they would cast me out. And . . . and
he’d take . . . he’d take my . . . my . . . .” She could not
finish. She clutched her belly and folded over it crying. Suddenly
Cary knew exactly what Zhurn had told her when his hand was on her
child.

“
So you must put up with
this for the rest of your life?” Cary asked, hoping to suggest the
implied alternative.

“
It is not always so bad,”
she snuffled, pulling herself together and looking toward the wall.
“The first few times he was kind. He did not like to see my face,
but he was gentle and no man had ever . . . . So when he asked me .
. . . I knew it was wrong, that I was shaming myself, but . . . but
I owed him everything. So I did what he asked. He changed after
that, got rougher, more demanding, but I knew that I had shamed
myself, that I deserved to be treated that way.” She brushed tears
from her eyes and changed tack. “I used to pass out, but I’ve
learned to make a space with my hand. I . . . I don’t know . . . .
I . . . . He does not come often, and I know that I should not defy
him. It only makes it worse, but . . . .” She looked back at Cary
just then seeming to realize what she was saying. “Why am I tell
you this? You’re a guth. You can’t possibly understand.”

“
I understand perfectly.”
Cary almost wished it weren’t true. “And I think you’re telling me
because I’m the only one who will listen. I think you need to tell
someone. I’m just glad it can be me.”

She stared at him for a
long time after that. He held it, let her feel the warmth of his
attention, let her know how good it could feel. When he left, she’d
long for nothing more.

There was a knock at the
door. Cary leapt from the bed, eyes darting from the door to the
passage. Could he make it to safety before someone entered and saw
him? The answer was a definitive no. “Noé ut Eselhelt,” a woman’s
voice called then followed with a few words that Cary could not
understand. Noé responded. Her eyes remained on Cary as she spoke,
considering. The first voice spoke again – a few short words – then
departed.