Page 17 of Besieger
Eager for news of the crusade, Dulior began attending gatherings and made quick friends with other noble ladies. She passed reluctantly through the threshold of churches and made donations, listened to the daily sermons and prayers, hoping her wait would soon end. The priests beckoned and pleaded with people to join the cause, to partake in restoring the faith throughout the East. AHoly War, they called it.
Dulior was losing patience. It had been two years already, and for a while no riders bearing news had come through the city gates. She began to take her frustration out on her husband. Gustave watched his wife wither and slowly lose her reason. Sometimes he would catch her harassing the servants or staring unblinking at candle flames, night butterflies crushed between her palms.
Through the butcher she found out that Silvio Bracci had been a servant in the house of Lord Damiano Gabrielli. Lord Damiano, once a hired sword from the Kingdom of Naples, was now too old to answer the call to arms himself. He had sent forth his son, only for the boy to die less than a year into the conquest.Had there been other deaths in the family?Dulior pressed, asking both aloud and forcing herself into the mortal’s mind.Is Silvio alive?The butcher did not know.
Did the boy die because Silvio failed to protect him or was it ill fortune? What if he was alive but could not return out of shame; his word debased to nothing? Dulior stalked the hallways of her home, imagining him somewhere under the sun, sword in hand, fighting his way through ranks of combatants. Other times she envisioned him in the beds of foreign beauties, the holy mission abandoned for the comfort of an easy life.
“More men will ride out East,” Gustave said one night, more to himself than to her. They were sitting next to each other in the dining room, the table arranged with a few dishes, the goblets waiting to be filled with wine.
Dulior looked up at him, noticing how his face had aged from worry. Light grey peeked around his temples and in his beard. She used to like his beard, how it brushed against her skin, tickling her when he leaned in for a kiss. Now it repulsed her and she averted her face, denying him this intimacy. Upon his departure, Silvio did not have a beard but in the months of travel and fighting maybe he would have let it grow out. What would he look like—older? Crueller?No, she shook her head,he could never be cruel. Not with me.
“..for months.”
She realized with a start that the Count had been talking for a while, telling her something. She blinked, forcing herself to push away the memory of her beloved.
“Husband?”
“They have been trying to take Antioch for months,” Gustave repeated. “The citadel’s walls are impregnable. They cannotmove forward without first capturing the city. I hear supplies are scarce, so they might turn back and try a different route later… or maybe never. God may have willed it, but the Seljuk have not.”
They wore the sign of the Cross and knew it was the will of God which had driven them here. For months they had stood in this forsaken land, waiting for reinforcements as they besieged the stronghold. The stench of blood and gore covered their skin and clothes, following them as they walked around the city.
In the days before they had ventured into the desert their supplies and strength felt endless. But in the days to come, they had abandoned their honour, taking upon themselves to forge new laws and codes. Driven by their hunger, anger, madness, they had struggled with the lack of provisions, drunk foul water and suffered beneath the scorching sun, becoming the very savages they had claimed to civilize. They turned to devouring what was left of the dead. No longer did they carry back the sick and weak.
And amidst their holy madness, Antioch was going to fall and the Kingdom of Heaven would descend upon all.
*
Dulior spat the blood, the taste putrid around her gums. The blood was getting fouler with each deserter that came her way. She was far away from any village and the creatures living in the desert could not sustain her. Her clothes had been reduced to rags, fraying and tearing from the long trek and freezing nights. She restrained herself from spitting more of the blood and shoved the corpse away.
Her victims always told her the same; the citadel was still standing and the besiegers’ morale was crumbling. The god of famine reigned in the encampment. Many had fled, unable or unwilling to continue making offerings at the altar of ruin.
“Where is he?” she whispered against the blood, forcing herself to swallow. “Show me my husband.”
Desperately she rummaged through her victims’ minds for a glimpse of Silvio, for a familiar face among the faceless.
By day, she would bury herself in the ground, digging holes deep enough to hide from the sun, and would rise like a shadow as the night fell. She followed the trail of carnage and destruction these godly men had left as a gaping wound across Europe. With each city and village, each pile of corpses and hollowed out animals, she hoped to find him and bring their pilgrimage to an end.
The only solace she found was in the warm embrace of the earth, the peace there was intoxicating. There was no more waiting in the darkness for the one destined to be hers, no more wandering. She need not recall the nights spent roaming Paris, breaking into churches looking for him, but oh, what beautiful altars she saw. She longed to lay his body under the painted glass and bind them there. For him to swallow all of her and share an eternity of bliss.
With each nightfall Dulior got out of the earth, the hunger pushing her forward, her eyes eagerly searching for the next deserter. Sometimes when the desperation caught up with her, she sank her teeth into the warm flesh of her captive’s horse. The poor animal was all skin and bones, barely standing on its legs, begging for release. She would hush the creature and feed as much as she could stomach from it. She needed her strength, every drop of blood mattered.
Every drop for her new husband.
“What do you have for me, my little moth?” Dulior cooed, pushing one foot in front of the other, feigning exhaustion. A rider was coming her way in the distance.
She was getting close, she could see it in the man’s mind. Her vision exploded with images of carnage, rape and looting. Men sank their blades into every body that stumbled their way. Screams and shouts set ablaze the masses. In the night a betrayer had opened the gates and they had spilled inside, blood-drunk.
Antioch had fallen.
Dulior staggered, her whole body shook. The horseman passed her, a curse dying on his lips. He was trying to put as much distance between himself and that godless graveyard. The crusaders’ claim over the citadel had been short-lived; the Sultan’s army had arrived, turning besiegers into besieged.
An object whizzed, splitting the air and an arrow hit the sand behind her. More riders were coming from the East. A second arrow hissed over her head, aimed for the retreating horseman. Her eyes adjusted in the setting darkness and she saw the figures taking shape on the horizon—four riders, maybe, in pursuit. The two in front spurred their mounts in a desperate bid to escape, but the animals stumbled, shying in terror.
One of the men was already failing. His body bobbed back and forth, barely clinging to the saddle; arrows jutted from his back and shoulders. An arrow had lodged in the horse’s croup, blood dripping slowly from the strained muscles. Dulior watched as the animal’s legs buckled at last, and it crashed to the ground, dragging its rider into the dirt. The screams of pain were deafening.
Seeing the animal collapse, one of the fleeing men howled—the raw terror of his cry reverberated through Dulior. He wheeled his horse around, unsheathing his sword. The pursuers shouted in return, delighted that half of their prey was down.
Deserters hunting deserters, Dulior furrowed her brows. The fight was going to save her time hunting, but it was also going to delay her. She had to wait it out unless she wanted to deal with them herself.Let these madmen disperse justice how they see fit,she dismissed them.
