The Ritual (28 page)

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” I muttered. “So what’s this stuff then?”

She cocked her head at me, frowning. “
Bath salts, of course.”

I stared at her. “Salt? In the
bath?
”

“Yes,” she said, still looking confused. “It makes your skin soft, and it smells nice.”

“So does soap,” I pointed out, but she shook her head and turned back to the shelf, selecting a bottle filled with pale green kernels. She was about to pour some in the bath when I stopped her and gestured for her to hand me the bottle, which she did after a moment’s hesitation. The scent was vaguely reminiscent of pine needles when I sniffed it, and I handed the bottle back.

“I don’t like that smell,” I said. “Please pick another.”

“But that’s–” she began to protest, so I resolutely pulled the bottle out of her unresisting hands and put it back on the shelf, then started sniffing the other ones. I felt a little guilty for pushing her around like this, but her timidity was getting on my nerves and I had to feel like I still had
some
control over what was happening to me. If that meant I had to bully Tiziel around, then so be it.

“This one,” I said, handing her a bottle with pale yellow salt, and with a last look and a shrug she measured an amount into the tub and swirled her fingers through the water.

“Please undress,” she said, and I complied. I had to admit that the water looked inviting, and since it had been about two weeks since my last bath I figured I might as well enjoy it.

It felt strange to sit in water that smelled of some exotic fruit but contained no bubbles, and I raised an eyebrow when Tiziel removed what little attire she wore and joined me in it. When she then proceeded to rub my arms and shoulders, I scooted away in surprise. “Whoah, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Washing you, of course,” she said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“I’m quite capable of doing that myself, thank you,” I assured her, continuing to scoot around when she kept following me.

“You need to be washed properly,” she insisted, then lunged at me with astonishing speed and dunked my head under water before I could react.

When I resurfaced, spluttering, I found her glaring at me. “You wish to learn?” she hissed, suddenly all temper. “Then sit, and let me teach you. Move again and I tell you nothing.”

I nodded mutely, taken aback by the sudden change in her, and she snatched at a flannel by the side of the bath with which she then proceeded to rub my skin with meticulous care. It felt a little rough, but to my surprise it was also soothing, and after a moment or two I relaxed.

“You’re in the Monastery of Balance,” Tiziel said, now sounding business-like. “You will be here until the masters tire of you. If you’re obedient, and if you continue to please, this could be many decades. I myself have been here nearly forty years.”

Forty years of being raped
, I thought, wondering how she could stand it. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was trying to reconcile myself with the fact that I might have to stand it myself, even if only for one or two days, but it wasn’t a thought I could dwell on for long. I wasn’t at all sure whether I could simply lie back and take it without fighting back, but to fight might jeopardise my escape plan, such as it was.

To distract myself I studied Tiziel through my eyelashes, wondering how old she actually was. For all that I was a half-elf, and knew that my lifespan would be much longer than a human’s – though not as long as an elf’s – I had no idea what that entailed, and how I would age. Tiziel looked strange to me, different from any other half-elf I had ever met, and I realised it was because I could not place an age on her at all. She could be fifty or a hundred or two hundred years old and I doubted that I would know the difference.

“The masters use us for sex, nothing else,” she continued, now rubbing my breasts while I pointedly looked away. “Some are rough, but most are not so bad. You may come to enjoy it.” When I snorted she gave me a sharp look. “Whether you do or not, it would be wise to pretend that you do. It is easy to displease the masters.”

“And if I displease them?”

“You are punished.”

“Meaning?”

She shrugged. “Beatings. Starvation. Solitary confinement. Whatever pleases them that day.” She had by now reached my lower body with her flannel, but when she would rub it between my legs and across my mound I resolutely took her wrist and pushed her away with a glare. There was only so much I was prepared to accept. She gave a little shrug as if to say ‘suit yourself’ and handed me the flannel with a pointed gesture.

“What if they tire of me?” I asked, humouring her by cleaning myself.

She spread her hands. “I do not know. Sometimes a woman leaves the pillow room and never returns. We do not find out what happens to them.”

For a heartbeat I stared at her, then a shiver went up my spine when I recalled Belder’s words to Tialev: ‘let’s throw her to the vultures’. It made me think that I
did
know what happened to the women who disappeared, and the mere idea was enough to make me nauseous. Another thought to push away into a deep corner of my mind.

“Right, so I’m being prepared for the masters,” I concluded, but Tiziel shook her head.

“No, you’re being prepared for the abbot. I’m sorry.”

I sat up straighter. “You’re sorry? Why?”

She bit her lip and absentmindedly took the flannel off me again. “The abbot, he… samples all the new girls first. He likes them to smell like that,” she pointed at the first bottle of bath salt she had tried to use, “but you picked another. This will displease him. I’m sorry, but you insisted.” She gave a deep sigh and started to rub at my arms again. “Maybe you’ll satisfy him nonetheless, and he’ll ask for you again. If so, I pity you.”

Her voice was now listless and flat, and the very deadness of her tone made me think twice of making light of her comments. “What’s so bad about the abbot?” I asked, but she simply shook her head, and no amount of cajoling and pleading on my part could make her say anything more.

I emerged from the bath squeaky clean, smelling exotic and with skin that felt like satin. I started to pick up my clothes, but Tiziel shook her head. “Leave them. You will not need them any longer.”

I had expected as much, but figured it had been worth a try anyway. With a shrug I followed her back into the dormitory, where a monk with long brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard was pacing around in agitation. When he spotted us he stopped and looked me over with unveiled interest, and I suppressed the urge to cover myself with my hands, refusing to look cowed. Tiziel didn’t seem to even notice that she was still naked, and I would not be outdone by someone as timid as she.

“This is the new girl then?” the monk asked, walking around me once and squeezing my buttock in passing. “Good. Young and firm. The abbot should enjoy her.” Then he pointed at the nearest bed. “Lie down.”

“I’m not tired,” I said, crossing my arms and raising my chin.

His expression darkened and he pressed his lips together, then grabbed my arm and manhandled me to the bed, shoving me down onto it. For a moment I thought he would rape me there and then, and I started to struggle, but then he raised his hands and muttered a few syllables. I had just enough time to realise that he was casting a spell, then it took hold and I sank into deep, dreamless sleep.

*   *   *   *   *

I had no idea what time it was when I was woken up, but the same monk stood by my bed, and he did not look inclined to answer my questions. “There, now get her ready,” he said, and only then did I see Tiziel behind him.

“Yes, master,” she said, her eyes cast downward, and the man strode away.

I yawned and stretched, surprised at how rested I felt. I had always refused Shani’s offers of magical sleep, but now I wondered whether it had been foolish of me to do so. Maybe next time I ought to accept.

“Come,” Tiziel said, intruding upon my thoughts, and with a last yawn I stood up and followed her.

She led me to a side door which I had missed on my way in. “Wait here,” she said, then made the comment superfluous by locking the door behind me as I went in. The room contained a comfortable chair and several dressers, each of them with a giant mirror on top of it, and more pots, bottles, containers, bowls and little boxes than I’d seen in even the most lavish elf boudoirs I’d burgled. I picked up a few of them and sniffed the contents, dazzled by the amount of creams and lotions they held.

The door opened again and Tiziel returned, followed by three other women. She pointed to a door at the back of the room, gesturing for me to go through it, and behind it I found a privy.

I did my business and returned, and the women pushed me into the chair without ceremony. They dashed back and forth between me and the dressers, and in the course of the next several measures I was relentlessly pampered to perfection. My armpits were shaved, and despite my insistent protests they also trimmed the hair on my mound into a neat triangle. I glared at them as they held me down all throughout the degrading procedure, but they simply ignored me.

They trimmed the hair on my head and treated it with scented oil, then they smeared several creams and lotions on my face in quick succession. They painted me up with eye-powder, blusher and lip-colour and finished by filing and lacquering my nails – both hands and feet – before making me stand up again.

When I caught sight of myself in one of the mirrors a stranger looked back at me; a slick, sleek woman who bore no resemblance whatsoever to what I knew I ought to look like. Maybe this was how I would be able to get through whatever the abbot was going to do to me – by pretending it wasn’t me that it was happening to.

Then one of the women stepped in front of me, holding an armful of bright crimson gauzy fabric and what looked like three triangles of something shimmery in gold, attached to a few pieces of string. She handed the triangles to Tiziel, who twiddled with them in an attempt to disentangle the strings. Only when she held out one of the triangle-string combinations and motioned for me to step into it did I realise that they were meant to be some sort of smallclothes.

I considered refusing, but so far it had availed me little, so with a sigh I complied and suffered her to pull it up and adjust it on me. The triangle of gold fabric covered the triangle of hair they had left me and little else, and the string rode uncomfortably between my buttocks. I tried to pull it out, but Tiziel batted my hand away and I stared fixedly ahead of me, refusing to give in to the embarrassed blush I felt starting to creep up.

The second set of triangles were tied around my breasts, and looked as pointless as the first set did. They covered my nipples and a little skin besides, but this contraption didn’t feel quite so uncomfortable, so I quickly forgot about it.

The gauzy fabric matched my hair, and was fashioned into a pair of roomy trousers and some sort of shirt. To my surprise they sewed me into it, leaving no means to take it off, but as usual no amount of questions yielded an answer as to why.

When they finally seemed satisfied Tiziel beckoned me with her, and I followed her through the dormitory and back into the pillow room, where three monks were waiting for me, one of them Belder. I caught one last, pitying look from Tiziel, then they took me by the arms and led me out.

We went through a maze of corridors, different from where I had come from the day before, and never passing a window so I could gauge the time. It could be morning, afternoon or evening, though there were too many monks out and about for it to be night. Whatever time it was, it looked too busy for me to try and make my escape now, so I meekly followed and studied every corridor, wishing I recognised anything familiar.

When I did, however, it sent a chill up my spine.
This was a quieter part of the monastery, but I had seen this corridor before, and cold fear clamped around my heart when I saw the door to which they led me. Even as they opened it I still wished I was mistaken, but I swallowed hard when I saw the small, bare room with its one little sideboard and the shackles on the wall.

“I came of my own free will,” I protested hoarsely. “There is no need for this.”

As usual I was ignored. The men pushed me inside, and when I started to struggle Belder suddenly grabbed me and shoved me hard against the wall, then pinned me to it with his body.

“I hope you enjoy the abbot, bitch,” he panted in my ear, feeling me up intimately. “And when he’s done with you, I’ll have you myself. You’ll regret fucking with me, I promise you that.”

I heaved at him and tried to bite his cheek, but by now the other two monks had shackled my right foot and arm to the wall, and Belder pulled away before I could reach him. “Feisty, aren’t you?” he chuckled as they shackled my other arm, and I tried to kick him with my free leg before that too was pinned down. “Oh, I’ll enjoy you alright.” He rubbed his crotch suggestively, then turned to the other two monks. “You two stay on guard.” With that they all left the room and I was alone, helplessly spread-eagled against the wall.

Panic began to rise in me, and I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, fighting for control. The image of the woman before me kept intruding in my mind though, and I might have vomited if my stomach had contained anything to bring up. With my loss of a sense of time I had no idea when I had last eaten anything, but it felt like more than a day ago.