The Promise
“Hand me the spreader.” The master reached across the table with an open hand.
In the flickering candlelight he looked more the part of grave robber than noble count. His open hand calloused with years of labor; fingers gnarled with arthritis betrayed his youth spent out in the world rather than behind thick stone walls like the rest of his kin. A tattered, stained tunic covered his torso. No noble robes, no cloak, just the basic necessities.
“Are you deaf, I said hand me the spreader,” master barked without looking up. A small cart covered with an assortment of oddities was before him.
“Here you are master.” The spreader was a strange device. It looked a little like a fork with 4 tines only much bigger. With something called a spring in the middle with a handle with a crank on top. It was one of a handful of contraptions that didn’t exist outside the master’s lab. Indeed many of the devices in this room alone would be enough to condemn the old man to death for deviancy.
Now holding the device the master’s hand it moved with deliberate speed. Sliding the tines under his right hand the master withdrew his ichor covered fingers and placed his palm on the crank while pressing down with his left hand. A sickly cracking reverberated off the stone walls. The master’s gaze still cast downward never betrayed any sign of emotion. Even as the spreader accomplished its grisly task, even as the cracking was replaced by a wet tearing sound akin to leather being stretched on a frame, the master’s face remained expressionless.
Even though the attendant had seen the master perform this same task dozens of times it still turned his stomach. The man on the slab had been working in the kitchens just yesterday. Now his corpse was splayed out on display.
What was his name? He’d passed the man in the corridors of the castle several times, he could remember speaking to him but now staring at his body splayed open, insides laid bare he couldn’t recall the poor sod’s name. Was he becoming like the master? No he could never been so uncaring, so cold to a life lost to the sweating sickness. He struggled to find the man’s name in the maze of his memory.
“There. Look at this.” The master pointed to something in the man’s chest. “There is a discoloration of this man’s heart. It should be dark red, almost brown but this small section is grey, devoid of all color.”
“How can you tell? His entire body is grey.” The words were out before he could swallow them.
The master rested both hands on the side of the table, as if he was struggling to change the target of his gaze. A sigh escaped his lips as he raised his head and for the first time in hours the young man could make out the master’s face. Pale skin, wrinkled by time sagged off his gaunt cheeks; teeth yellowed by a lifetime of meals shielded a tongue sharper than any sword from view. His eyes blue as the clearest sky, framed by curtains of flesh as his eyelids drooped, fixed their gaze on the young attendant. In all he looked to be a bit like a clay statue that hadn’t been cured long enough before being removed from the kiln.
“I know this is tedious and gruesome work, but I will find a way to cure this damned disease.” The master’s voice was more forlorn than furious. “This man” the master glanced to the body below him, “was alive and well just two days ago. He brought the day’s catch into the castle and stocked the larder with the baker’s goods. He wasn’t exposed to the elements, he didn’t live in squalor, he was well fed, and slept in a warm bed. Yet this disease struck him down…took his life within MY WALLS.” The body bounced on the table creeping closer to the young man as the master’s fists slammed the table top.
Driven to anger by the mention of the disease, the master only spoke about the man in the same tone as a soldier giving a status report. Indeed the only emotion in his voice was anger, anger at a formless illness that spread its ghostly fingers and touched people throughout the kingdom. Mothers and fathers taken while children were left untouched and alone. Most people were scared and started calling it Death’s Breath, as once the sweating started death was mere hours away.
“Did you even know his name?” Again the young man’s voice spoke up without him willing it.
“Excuse me?” His toneless speech replaced by that of a strict parent disciplining a small child, his blue eyes, piercing the young man’s very spirit. “What did you just say to me?” Sweat forming on his brow.
The young man wasn’t accustomed to meeting the master’s gaze, but something stirred within him. He stared back at the master daring him to do something. “The man here” he said pointing, “did you even bother to ask his name before you butchered him like a fattened calf? Did you give any care to what this man’s family would think if they knew what barbaric deeds you were performing on his corpse?”
He realized now. All this time, dozens of bodies, treated the same way. No reverence, no rituals for the gods, just a slab of meat carved up as the master pleased. He had reached his limit. Whether the master would experiment on him next or not he no longer cared. He had remained quiet for too long and now like a pot of boiling water contempt was spilling out.
The master sighed, shaking his head. He walked to a small bowl of water sat at the head of the table, and thrust his hands into the clean water tainting it red with the man’s vitae.
“His name was William. He didn’t have a family to morn him. He followed me on my final campaign for the lord Duke.” To say tears formed in his eyes would be a stretch by a glimmer of emotion was betrayed despite his practiced expression. “He saved my life twice. The second time it cost him much.” The master cast his eyes toward an old partially healed scare just below his right shoulder. “An arrow pierced his chest. Will couldn’t catch his breath from that day on… His life as a warrior over, he asked me to end his life. I refused and offered him a place here my castle. His loyalty was stronger than his shame and he lived and worked here since.”
The master rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How many years has it been now…” His voice trailed off as though he no longer took notice of the still living attendant in the room.
“Doesn’t matter.” His gaze once more transfixed on the young man. “I knew all their names. Twenty-three souls have lain on this table. Every single one taken before their time claimed by Death’s Breath… such a moniker gives this disease far too much credit.” He said shaking his head again. “I had a scout called Shade when I was still a soldier. Shade could kill an enemy general while he slept in his tent guarded by an entire army and no one knew until he failed to address to his soldiers the next morning. He was death made flesh; elegant, quick, quiet and precise. This disease is none of those. It is a club, not a scalpel. It kills without rhyme without reason.”
The master did know them. He did care. The attendant almost believed he takes each death personally as though it’s his fault.
“It’s a disease, just one of many stalking the land these days. What makes Death’s Breath so special as to draw your noble ire?”
The master looked up toward the ceiling, placing both hands on either side of the bowl trying to brace himself. In the reflection of the water’s surface the young man could see a shadow pass over the master’s face as he closed his eyes and whispered.
“My daughter.”
