Page 44 of Besieger
Wretched thing,the voice returned, and this time Amerigo recognized it as a woman’s. He shrunk back; back into Silvio’s embrace, as the woman’s eyes bore into him.He is mine. He was meant for me.
“Come, husband,”the woman gestured for Silvio to stand and follow her. “We are a long way from Paris and we have wasted enough time waiting for your…” She looked over her shoulder and frowned. Her beautiful face twisted with disgust when her eyes landed once more on Amerigo. She failed to find the right word for him. For whatever he was now. “The sun will rise if we do not hurry.”
Go back into the earth, the voice hissed.
That night, their small company of three marched on, Amerigo’s fingernails still marred with dirt, his mouth permanently full with the taste of copper. His saliva and tears had become blood. He tasted blood in Silvio’s kisses, his lungs felt ready to burst with it. It spilled from one mouth into another, veins ripping, bodies convulsing.
And the hunger—
No, not hunger—a thirst. He keened, tongue moving nervously inside his mouth, his teeth suddenly too big, his gums itched. He could not stop biting at his tongue and the inside of his cheeks.
He felt wrong. His body felt wrong.
Unsightly rodent.
Clenching his jaw, Amerigo tried to suppress the voice but he did not know how. Every time he looked at the woman she did not appear to have spoken. Her lips remained shut in a tight line when she was forced to look in his direction.
Amerigo turned towards Silvio and focused.
Nothing.
He reached out, his hand searching for purpose and answers. Nothing came from Silvio, no bile, no scorn. Those green eyes gazed at Amerigo overwhelmed with feeling.
I am losing my mind, he thought. He could have sworn that earlier the woman was telling him to die, how he was worthless and slowed them down. How he should have stayed buried and turned to rot.
“Rico?” Silvio embraced him around the shoulders, and urged forward.
Amerigo looked down and noticed his grip had tightened on Silvio’s tabard. He was clutching at the fabric with such force his knuckles had gone white and his nails had bitten into his palm, drawing blood.
His hair kept getting in the way. Oh, how he hated the arrogance of it, the sight and feeling of it.
“I will cut it when we get to Jerusalem,” he said that first night, when they rode out of Paris, eager to join the other knights. He would grow out his hair and cut it when Christ’s work was done.
Back then Amerigo had been full of vigour, intoxicated by the prospect of adventure. His vow was bold and maybe a little blasphemous, but he could not restrain himself. He wanted to leave a mark into this world, in the same way he had left a mark,a secret scribble, in the tomes he read at church. He had not expected the pilgrimage would last for long, nor that he would eventually get used to the hair falling in his eyes. Always getting stuck in his clothes, in the strings of his breastplate or bracers, in his food and in his mouth. He got used to it, and on very rare occasions saw his long hair in its full glory, washed clean and combed. He even thought himself handsome. Silvio certainly thought so, but Silvio never found Amerigo lacking.
Now, with the glory of Christ no longer on Amerigo’s mind, it was time to cut it. They were never going back. There was no promised land, no gods to fight for.
The woman brought them to a spring, the water bubbling with movement, so cool and pristine. Silvio gave out a hoarse laugh and scurried to the edge of the water, splashing some of it on his face. The dirt dripped in rivulets off his head and soaked his clothes.
The only blades left on them were the swords and a chipped eating knife. Their only defence against deserters and bandits. If the woman carried a blade with her, Amerigo did not dare ask. He shrunk from her, making himself as small as possible, and sat close to Silvio on the ground.
“I will take this as a sign that we are not going back to Jerusalem,” Silvio whispered softly, his attempt at teasing falling flat, as he helped Amerigo cut his hair.
They threw the cut strands on the ground and the darkness swallowed them whole. They disappeared into nothing, as if they had never been there. They cut and cut, until Amerigo’s hair was so short it barely reached the nape of his neck. The final job was crude and ugly; without the hair falling on his back he felt naked and too light on his feet. There was something final and oddly freeing in the act.
They washed themselves in silence in the cold water, put back their dirty clothes and tabards, and resumed the trek. Everything on them screameddeserterbut they had nothing else.
“You need to feed, husband,” the woman pronounced as if there was nothing simpler than finding a warm meal in this wasteland. “There is a town not far from here, we shall hunt there.”
Silvio and Amerigo exchanged glances. Hunt? They were in no state to lay traps or track game. Even if they miraculously found a deer, with what were they to shoot it? They had no bow or arrows.
When they reached the town, its houses and roads nested in the soft gloom, their guide bade them wait behind a barn for her return.
Amerigo counted under his breath, waited, scared, before he turned and whispered shakily to Silvio.
“Who is this woman and what does she want? She…she keeps calling you husband.”
Silvio frowned and stared at his hands. The wounds on his knuckles and wrists had disappeared, miraculously healed; his skin was now smooth and flawless. Amerigo remembered how much his lover used to complain, hissing every time he had to don the leather gloves and take up the sword. His hands had started to ache during the long marches beneath the sun, and only worsened while they waited for the citadel to fall.
