Vhamnya's Tale: Rise of a Dark Queen - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Vhamnya's room in the abbey had a window of cut glass. She could open it, and could have crawled out through the tight opening, but that the fall would have brought her forty feet to the ground. She enjoyed sitting in the sill, especially when the sun shone high. She liked to look out and watch the fields, bird flocks flying across the sky, and wagons, horsemen, and herds driving along the road. Far off she could see a dark green line where trees thickened. Eventually, she learned to call this the forest. She imagined walking beneath the trees whose leaves block out the sun, of bushes where she could walk and hide unseen.

The women brought her food and drink three times a day. After a few days a priest, one of the older ones, came and talked with her. He asked questions about the prison and what the cruel men and women did to her. He also began teaching her letters, which he showed how to write her name. She enjoyed scratching her name in charcoal across the stone walls.

She asked him only once of Carvvyn and got the same answer as from the woman. She asked more often about her mother, who she gathered also dwelled within the abbey, for when the girl mentioned her, she got the feeling the priest might be convinced to let them see each other. She talked to the soldiers who stood watch outside her door and learned their names. Eventually they began sneaking nutcakes to her and would push them through the jamb. She began to understand that, despite their fear, these people had a desire to please her. If she asked right and showed patience, she could bring them around to giving her what she wanted. Though the sentiment was weak, even unconscious, the evil delight of her earlier captors no longer held sway. Only one thing marred this subtle adoration: their belief that something about her was wrong.

The source of wrongness lay with her father, of whom no one ever spoke. She thought back to the whispers of the Dark Prince she had heard in the prison. Then she looked at her skin's hue, which was inky black in darkness and shone gray in daylight.

One day while she sat with the priest reading letters he scrawled on a wax tablet, she asked: "Who is my father?"

The elderly man nearly dropped his writing-stick. "What do you mean, child?"

Vhamnya touched his knee. "Who is my father?" she repeated evenly.

He simply stared wordlessly.

She swallowed and guessed: "Is he the Dark Prince whom everyone fears?"

The priest set aside the tablet. "What do you know of him?"

She shook her head.

He sighed. "We do not speak his name. You must never speak his name," he warned. "I will tell you one thing about him. Do you know your mother's illness? Her madness?"

The dark girl nodded.

"He did that to her, child," he told her. "He broke her mind, made her mad, and left her only with you."

Vhamnya stood still. At length: "He left us with the bad men?" she asked.

The old man's eyes grew bright. "Yes. He left you with those bad men."

Vhamnya went to the window. She sat in the sill and drew her knees up to her chin, so that her robe's hem ended just shy of her toes. She turned her head to look at the bright beautiful day outside.

A sob startled her dark thoughts. She looked within at the priest. Tears wept down his face. The girls hopped down. "Why are you crying?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "Our wariness has made us less wise. All this time we have feared you, and you are just a little girl without mother or father, who has no idea why we do what we do." Then he took her hands, kissed them, and pressed them to his forehead.

Vhamnya twined her fingers around his: six dark ones to his five pale ones. Now she sensed his unwariness, a lack of any reserve toward her. "Where is my mother?" she asked.

"She is here." His shoulders sagged. "We try to keep her from harming herself. She always asks for you."

"May I see her?" she requested.

"If the others agree, and she will not harm you, I will see it," he agreed.

Vhamnya smiled, pleased in getting what she wanted.

A couple days later, the priests took Vhamnya to her mother's room, put her inside, and locked them in together. Rennyae rushed to her daughter, threw her arms around her, and collapsed weeping joyfully. When the priests came to fetch the girl, they found all of Rennyae's cuts and wounds cleaned and tended. Thereafter, they let Vhamnya visit her mother. Rennyae's fits lessened. She became altogether more biddable and less violent to her captors' attentions. Soon they even let Vhamnya carry her mother's meals. The priests watched approvingly how the small girl cared for her mother.

One night, Vhamnya watched out through her window. A book lay in her lap while she spied bats and owls flitting, as easily as if in bright day. The darkness did not hinder her eyes, be it the night's shade or even the cellar's black gloom.

Her gaze caught a company of horsemen riding along the road. This she thought strange. Although she did not understand why men moved and worked in daylight, she knew they preferred it, and sleeping at night. Vhamnya sometimes let herself sleep, for often the nights were simply too boring to do anything else. She wished more priests worked at night, since they might give her something to do.

While she watched, the horsemen turned toward the abbey, heading toward the main gate. Vhamnya rose to her knees as they approached. Leaping down, she went to door and knocked. She hoped her guard was not sleeping. "Someone's coming!" she called.

After repeated knocking she heard a groan in the hallway outside. "Go to sleep, girl," grumbled the guard.

"Someone's comin!," she repeated. "Two score horsemen and they're almost to the gate."

Outside the guard harrumphed. His bootsteps stomped along the hallway, growing fainter.

Moments later, something boomed lowly below. Shouts hardly louder than whispers wafted through the window. Then an alarm bell rang. Vhamnya heard the priests' cries waken throughout the abbey.

She could do nothing but wait while the din loudened around and below her. She hopped back into window, but the gate lay further along the wall, and she could see nothing but milling horses. She knocked on the door again, but the guard had not returned. She shouted for help, but no one heard.

At last the door opened, and the elderly priest joined her. "Come with me!" he bade. He took her hand and led her from the room.

He took Vhamnya to her mother's room. There waited a foursome of guards, all armed and armored. "We must go," he declared, and opened her mother's door. "Mind your mother, and keep her quiet. Now bring her out."

Vhamnya went in and took her mother's hand. A few words quietened the wild look in Rennyae's eyes. Then Vhamnya brought her out of the room.

The priest led them through a cramped passageway; two soldiers before, two soldiers behind. In the shadows ahead Vhamnya made out a door.

Suddenly the door crashed inward. More soldiers broke their way through the boards and charged toward. "Back!" shouted the priest. They retreated to a stair landing.

But more soldiers rushed down the stairs. The priest, Vhamnya, and their guards halted, bound on both sides. Then the attackers raised their weapons and closed in. The guards fought back around them, while Vhamnya, the priest, and her mother cowered amidst them.

Vhamnya peeked upward, though her mother's hands shielded her eyes. She watched a soldier hack the priest's arm when he raised it to defend himself. Then the soldier hewed the priest's head. The old man fell bleeding; sword stuck in his skull.

Around them all their guards were dead. The soldier drew a dagger and grabbed Rennyae's shoulder, who screamed and clawed back. Vhamnya bolted when her mother's arms came free. She ran into the soldier's ironclad leg and bounced off. The soldier cursed and twisted toward her. The dagger flashed downward in his hand.

White-hot pain burst through Vhamnya's body and mind. She did not feel her knees go weak, other than that suddenly she lay on the floor instead of standing. Above her, the soldier grappled her mother. His armored fist tightened and punched into her belly. Then his hand lifted and slapped across her face.

The girl looked at the dagger-hilt sticking out of her shoulder. Oddly, the pain was empty, nowhere like what the cruel men with their lashes and barbs had inflicted back in her prison. It seemed almost unreal. Vhamnya's unwounded hand grasped the hilt. It came out bloodlessly, seamlessly; no witness to its violation in her dark flesh.

The girl rolled onto her knees. Squeezing the dagger in both hands, she thrust it into the man's boot. He screamed. He staggered and fell beside her.

"Hold!" shouted a voice above. Another soldier came down the stairs. "I commanded that no harm should come to the girl!"

Before him parted the other soldiers. Vhamnya's mother still struggled, but two soldiers held her. Vhamnya crouched, clutching the bloody dagger. The pain had vanished. It had melted into anger and a tingling, oddly pleasurable through her shoulder and chest.

The new soldier knelt before her: "I am Phyllip, Prince of Aquilea. No harm will come to you, girl. I promise you."

Vhamnya sat speechlessly. She did not want to believe him.

Prince Phyllip cocked his head. "You may keep the dagger," he smiled, "but you must come with me."

She frowned. "Where will we go?"

"There are folk who will pay a lot of money and do great things for me, in exchange for you," he answered. "I intend to be more than just a prince. You will provide my path to greatness."

Vhamnya sensed cruelty behind his words, but nowhere nearly as cruel as the men and women she had first known. She looked at the old priest, where his split head lay in a bloody pool. He had taught her letters and had shown her kindness after Carvvyn. She would miss him and the other priests here. Then she glanced at her mother.

"Yes. Of course I'll bring your mother," agreed Prince Phyllip. "I can't really have one of you without the other." He pointed to her dagger: "Now do you promise not to stab me with that?"

Vhamnya nodded.

"Good." His hand turned over, offering itself to her. "Let's go."

The sun was reddening the sky when Phyllip led them outside. Somewhere smoke burned. It drifted over the ransacked abbey and glinted ruby in the morning light. Around the abbey gathered Prince Phyllip's soldiers, carrying weapons and tacking horses. Further out on the road came more soldiers, more ranks, and more companies. They formed an army that had come to take her away.

Continued in Chapter 3

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