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donkeytonk · 3 months

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Hunger, part 2

(Part 1 here)

In her cell Sula was sleeping, as she always was now, when Crispin arrived for the final time on the fifth day. "Sula, they - Leliana would like to ask you some questions. Can you come with me? Are you able to walk?"

Her mind was blurry. Who was Leliana? He had mentioned her name before. Was she the woman who had ordered Sula to be sent to the dungeon? So, at last, it was time to face her fate, and she was ready for it to be over with even if it meant torture, death, or tranquility. The anxiety of waiting had held its own terror, but now that the wait was over, she was unable to meet it without fear.

“What will she do to me?” she asked in small voice, half whispering because of the pain in her throat.

“Nothing. She’ll just ask you some questions. She won’t hurt you.”

Like a child, she nearly asked him to promise before remembering that it would not convince her. He had lied to her before. Instead she asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure, Sula.”

“Should I tell her – I can tell her that I’m a blood mage. I’ll say whatever I need to say, only don’t let her hurt my Circle! Please don’t let me let them be hurt.”

His face was troubled and he shook his head earnestly. “No, nobody wants you to do that. Just tell the truth, like you did before.”

She nodded and let out a shaky but resigned sigh and accepted his help in standing. Then he stopped her.

“Wait, you’re limping. Sit down and let me take a look at your feet.”

She struggled to remove her sodden boots and stockings until he took over, and the fiery inflamed chilblains on her toes were almost purple.

He let out an involuntary hiss of curses as he examined them. “I’m sorry, I should have treated them sooner. I have some salve that will help them.” She watched, almost hypnotized, as he rubbed a salve on them. He mentioned that there was rosemary in it, but she could not smell it. When was the last time she had smelled rosemary? Were there still lovely things like rosemary out in the world? Perhaps it was just as well in this stinking cell that her sense of smell had been blocked, but she would have liked to smell rosemary one more time. But his hands were warm as he applied the balm, and it felt as if they were the first warmth to touch her feet in years. When he reached for her boots, she shook her head.

“No, I don’t want them.” They were cold, wet, stiff miserable things, as were the blood stained stockings that she had knitted herself. But since she should not walk about with bare and blistered feet in such a filthy place, he wrapped her feet in the remainder of his bandages. And now, finally, it was time to leave the cell for better or for worse. The Templar guard unlocked and opened the cell door for them and she gave him a wary look as they passed. He did not follow them to the door, however. It was only Cripsin and herself.

She jumped as the dungeon door slammed shut behind then, and they were faced with more stairs than she had ever seen in her life, apart from those terror-filled moments when she had been dragged down them five days ago. It felt like an eternity to climb them all, like climbing those wretched mountains again, but they stopped to rest once they reached the top.

“Where is it? Where are we going?”

“It’s not much further. Sister Leliana’s study is here in the chantry. Just a couple more rooms to walk through.”

Sister Leliana. So she was part of the Chantry, and probably not inclined favorably toward apostate mages. “Will there be Templars?”

“No, no. At least…” He frowned, and Sula realized that he was in the dark too. He was just guessing at everything. Everything including the assurance that she would not be harmed. “I don’t think there will be. Just Sister Leliana. She’s Chantry but – I trust her. You’ll be safe. She won’t harm you. And I’ll be there too.”

For most of their brief acquaintance, Sula had come to despise the healer, to blame him (and the Inquisition as a whole) for the deaths of her friends and the injury to herself, but he was also her only ally in the world right now, the only person who had showed her any kindness in this wretched place, and now her only hope. She grasped his hand and blurted out her final plea. “If they do hurt me, don’t let me say the wrong thing and get my friends killed. Please. Don’t let them make me hurt anyone. I can’t.”

He looked down at her with something like pity in his eyes. She believed in that moment that he genuinely did want to help her.

“You don’t need to worry about that, Sula.”

Wrong answer. “Please! Promise me you won’t let me hurt them. Will you stop me? I can’t bear up, I can’t fight against any more pain. I know I can’t.” She was cut off by a fit of coughing. If they were to put her to the question by torture now, she would confess and blame anyone that they wanted. She had no strength to withstand it. Is that why they had waited so long? She spoke again in a hoarse whisper. “Please promise me.”

He turned his face away from her then, but after a moment, he finally nodded. “I promise.”

He would have to kill her.

“But that’s not going to happen,” he added, looking at her earnestly, compassionately. “All right? It’s going to be all right. Just tell the truth.”

She nodded too, and then rose again from the step where she had been resting.

He prepared to open the door. “Are you ready? It’ll be a bit brighter in here. It may hurt your eyes for a few moments.”

When they stepped into the nave, she was dazzled. She had never seen so many candles in her life, and daylight streamed through the windows that stretched high above. After a few steps, she looked down and was amazed to see that they were walking on soft richly worked woolen rugs in red and gold. When had she last seen such beautiful colors? Looking down was preferable to looking up. The nave was far too large and expansive, and she pressed closer to the other mage as they crossed to the other side.

“It’s just through here,” Crispin said as they reached another door. “Are you all right?”

He was looking at her and frowning with concern, which only furthered her own anxiety. Of course she was not all right. She was preparing to die, or perhaps worse. How could she be all right? But she nodded. There was no sense in delaying it any longer.

He knocked on the door and a voice called for them to come in. He entered first and Sula followed. The room was warm, incredibly warm and comfortable, and there was a deliciously enticing fire burning. She realized that she did still possess a sense of smell because she smelled wood smoke and it smelled like home. She wanted to run to the fire and warm her hands and feet and entire body next to it, to curl up on that rug and sleep beside the fire.

She jumped as a woman spoke. “Hello Sula. Sit please.” The woman was standing behind a desk and indicating a chair on the opposite side of it. Sula sat obediently. “Crispin, you may go.”

Go? He was leaving her? He squeezed her shoulder as he moved to the door, speaking words meant to sound reassuring but which she barely heard. He was abandoning her. Again. He had delivered her to judgment again. Again! He was the errand boy of judgment, just an escort guard. Of course he was. And his promise earlier on the stairs was useless.

She was still staring at the door that had closed behind him when the woman spoke again. “You have nothing to fear. Unless you are guilty.”

What comfort was that? Of course she was guilty of being an apostate. That had been thrown upon her without her choice.

The woman began asking her questions, simple ones at first. They were easy to answer. Harmless things, things that she probably already knew the answers to. Sula had to pause for attacks of coughing a few times. She was caught off guard when the woman began asking about their passage across the Waking Sea.

“What happened?” she asked.

“What?”

“You said there were eighteen of you at the fort, but twenty-seven of you had set out originally. What happened to the others?”

Lene with all of her medicines. Magnus taking charge of the food stores. Leath, Ronnie, Mel, and Cromarty with the three apprentices: Margaret, Hebona, Jeanie. Their boatwoman was a friend of the fishmonger that they had traded with for years, as were the other two boatmen. Sula had known Janet fishmonger personally and had trusted her. Their own two boatmen had brought them safely across.

“We lost them,” Sula whispered, fighting the pain in her throat. “I don’t know.”

Sister Leliana moved on, continuously onwards at what felt like a dizzying speed. Sula barely had time to think ahead before another question was fired like an arrow. She could not even remember what she had said so far.

“So you found the soldiers’ bodies in the woods, and you took their uniforms?”

“Not me, the scouting party –“ Sula froze. Was this it? The woman had not even needed to apply pain to get Sula to betray others in her Circle. “I mean, I didn’t see what happened when they found them.”

“You didn’t see, so you don’t know what happened.”

No, no! “I know they didn’t kill them, because we would have heard if there was a battle. We weren’t far away. I was with the apprentices, foraging. And then they came and told us.” She had to pause and catch her breath after another fit of coughing, but she added, “I saw the bodies when we made the pyres, and they’d been dead for more than a day, I’m sure of that.”

But already the woman was moving on, asking about their routines at the fort, about how the remaining soldier Pearson had taught them the way to dress and act like soldiers until the Inquisition came.

“I made a garden there,” she blurted. Then she added in a small voice, “I’m a gardener.”

She had told herself not to volunteer any new information, but it was harmless. Surely the woman would see that they were all harmless, wouldn’t she? Why would evil murderous apostate blood mages plant a garden? Why would they choose such a desolate spot if they wanted a garden and had demons to do their bidding? They were starving. They were homeless and had no more friends or allies in the world, as far as they knew. They had only taken the fort because they needed food and shelter. There were little children with them. They had only taken the uniforms to keep up the pretense so nobody would notice anything amiss. They had treated the bodies with respect, burned them on pyres just as they would have done for their own dead. They ate what they needed for sustaining life. No one else was eating it. Pearson alone could not have eaten all those stores in a year.

More questions about daily routines, and that wretched liar Pearson, more coughing. Sula had not had to speak this much in weeks.

“Crispin.”

Immediately the door was opened and the healer was there.

“We’re finished now. Take her to the new medics’ house. She looks like death.”

Sula could not understand what she was saying. She stared at the woman in dull confusion. What did it mean? But Crispin was helping her to stand again and was guiding her back to the door, away from the terrifying woman and her little room. Sula’s head was swimming. It was finished? She didn’t have to answer any more questions? No questions about blood mages and demons and battles? Finally all of the fear took over her body, and she began trembling as they walked through the nave. Walking, and then even standing still made her lightheaded. She clutched the healer’s arm to keep from falling onto the carpeted floor. He was speaking to her but she could not understand his words. The entire nave was turning dark, the candles just one shrinking bright and blurry spot in the distance.

Crispin caught her in his arms before everything blackened completely.

When she raised her head a moment later, he was carrying her to the large entrance door at the back of the nave. This wasn’t the way back to the cells. They were going out, back into the world. When they moved outside the light was blinding and the sky was enormous. She ducked her head and closed her eyes again, but she could smell cook fires, and she could hear people talking and laughing, and even birdsongs. The air was cold but fresh. She opened her eyes to a cautious squint and could see that they were in a village, an ordinary village with ordinary people, with dazzling snow and trees and houses. She glanced back at the Chantry in confusion. Was she dreaming? But there was no tempting demon trying to get into her mind, not this time. Crispin was carrying her, which was strange, but she was glad she did not have to walk just now. Everything was too big, utterly too much for her senses, and his arms seemed to be a safe, small, confining place for the moment.

“Where are we going?”

"There's a house outside the walls that the healers are using," he told her. "It's a little bit of a walk, but there's warm beds and hot food. All the clean blankets you want."

She coughed out a laugh that sounded like a sob. “And then, when will I have to go back?”

“Never.” His voice was soft but definite. “You will never have to go back there.”

“But they think I’m a blood mage?”

“Not anymore.”

“Are you sure?” The woman hadn’t even asked her about that. Didn’t that mean she still had more questions?

“I’m sure,” he said firmly. “You’re safe.”

"And my Circle?" She frowned, having trouble even remembering the details of the interrogation. It was all a blur. "She didn't even ask me their names. Or how to find them."

“Then they’re safe too.”

It was impossible to believe. Her greatest fear had been that she would implicate someone that she loved by accident or in desperation under duress, under torture. Could she really have escaped that fate? She could not even remember what questions the woman had asked her. But the healer sounded confident, and he was the only one that she could trust right now. And she was so utterly exhausted, her mind in a fog. She leaned her head against him and closed her eyes, still frowning as she tried to remember what had been said in that little room at the Chantry.

When she next opened her eyes, they were passing the city walls. She must have fallen asleep. In this area there were no roads or paths to be seen under all the fresh snow, and no more people at the moment. She could feel the cold snow beneath Crispin’s feet, the same way that she could feel her bees’ wings by placing her hand on their skep hive. Sula had always been friends with water in all of its forms, as befits a gardener born by the sea, but just now she was tired of snow. She set her hand on Crispin’s arm, then rested her head and shut her eyes again.

He continued walking at the same pace, then slowed and looked around, then took a few deliberate steps one after another. He watched as the snow melted and evaporated the instant his foot came near it. He was walking on the bare ground, but only in the space of his footsteps.

Sula opened her eyes, wondering why they had slowed.

“Is that you?” he asked.

His voice was light but she tensed, sudden fear overtaking her with the realization of what she had done. Magic. Simple, small and harmless, but magic all the same. “I’m sorry! Did you feel it?” She had not considered that the skep might not like its use in her communication with the bees. But no, it was worse than that. She looked around in a panic, expecting to see Inquisition soldiers marching towards them. “Did anyone see?” He was going to summon his soldier friends and the Templars and she’d be trudging through the snow again, tether chafing on her wrist, freezing feet, hauled directly back to the Chantry cells, and then…

“No! No, Sula, it’s fine. You’re fine, you’re safe. It’s all right for you to use magic here.”

“I didn’t think! I always – I did it without thinking. I’m sorry!”

He shook his head. “It’s all right, you don’t need to apologize. It’s fine.” He looked concerned, but he offered her a reassuring smile. “I appreciated it, walking without snow for a moment.”

Her treatment of the snow had of course stopped the moment he had mentioned it, and he was walking through the snow once again. After she had begun to calm down, and after a few minutes’ consideration, she pointed at a large rock nearby. “You can put me down right there.”

“Sula, you don’t have any shoes.”

“No, just put me down for a moment. I’m heavy. You can have a rest.”

She was not as heavy as she ought to have been, of course, after several months of privation, but even a little child grows heavy in a mother’s arms after a while. He carefully set her on a rock so she could sit with her feet above the snow, and then he sat next to her. He did look tired, she noticed, unless that was his regular appearance. She had not spent much time in his presence by daylight, apart from following behind him on the march. On some days she had stared at his back for hours.

Quietly, cautiously she spoke again. “Are you sure it’s all right for me to use magic?” she asked, even there was no one who could see or hear them.

“Yes, I promise. You can do anything you like.”

She could tell that he meant it. What a bold thing to say to a recently jailed apostate accused of blood magic and the deaths of dozens of Inquisition soldiers. Did he genuinely trust her that much? Perhaps he just trusted his own strength more. That would certainly make sense, as weak as she was.

She looked across the snowy landscape. “Which way are we going? What direction?”

“That way, by those trees, and then just a little further up. There’s a path, it’s just covered in snow right now.”

“With those tracks?”

“Yes, probably deer tracks.”

It made sense. Wild creatures tend to use the easiest path, just like people. She tucked up her bandaged feet and leaned down to touch the ground with her right hand. The snow cleared before it as it had done for Crispin’s feet. She could feel that the ground was frozen much deeper than she was used to at home, and quite saturated too, but the air was dry. There was an area where the earth was more compact; that must be the path where countless feet had walked. A thaw spread from her hand and formed a long ribbon of mist as moisture puffed up into the air, some of it glittering away as tiny ice crystals in the breeze. Below the dispersing ice fog was left a path of bare earth wide enough for one man’s stride all the way to the trees.

“It’s rocky,” she explained apologetically. It would not have been quite so muddy, but the rocks slowed her down and she was exhausted. Still, it had felt so good to reach out to the Fade and communicate with the soil and water, like stretching cramped limbs and feeling whole again, like greeting a friend after a long absence. Even the fresh mud under her fingernails was welcome.

Crispin was smiling. “That’s wonderful, Sula. That will make our walk easier. I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Yes.” All this time. All those days journeying through the snow that spilled over her boots and froze her feet, sleeping in the snow and waking in a puddle, snowmelt and mud, slipping on the ice, days in that damp and frozen cell, wet boots, wet stockings, the stink of damp straw and piss – she could have removed all of it. She could have swept up all the damp to make a rain cloud over that liar Pearson’s cell, if it weren’t for her terror of the Templar guard. She could have dried her stockings and boots. She could have cleared paths and slept in dry blankets.

But she had not had the power to quench the fire. That was beyond her ability. It had been a fire formed by a stronger mage than her.

“Are you ready to keep going?” Crispin asked. She nodded and allowed him to lift her again.

She was tired and coughing when they passed the trees and she did not have the energy to care about the snow any more. Her eyes were closed and so she was surprised when they stopped in front of a house. He lightly kicked at the door which was opened a moment later to let them in. It was warm and comfortably darker than the sun and snow outside, but anything unfamiliar made Sula wary.

“What’s this place?” Anxiety tinged her voice as she looked around.

“It’s just the infirmary,” he answered lightly. “You can sleep here for now.”

It was so strange to be inside a place that was not made of iron bars and stone. Even the interrogator's room at the chantry had been imposing, everything heavy and impressive, oppressive. Here was simplicity, efficiency, quiet order. There were sick and injured patients, of course, but even they were more welcome company than guards and rats and Pearson. Most showed no interest in her, and just a few gave her the merest glance.

And it was warm. There was a large fireplace on one wall with a bright blaze within that heated the room. She longed to lie down next to it and sleep for days.

Crispin was talking to another woman, perhaps another healer, and she led them to an empty cot. “Here,” he said to Sula as he laid her on it. "Are you all right to lie here for a moment while I find some blankets?"

She nodded in exhausted relief. She could lie here forever.

He smiled. “Good. I’ll be back in a moment.” She fell instantly into sleep. She woke again, warm beneath several blankets, when she felt her cot swaying and moving. She murmured in confusion and looked up at Crispin’s face, upside down, behind and above her head. How did that happen? "We're just shifting you to another room. It'll be a bit quieter there and you can sleep.” He and the other healer carried the cot into a smaller room. It had its own little fireplace blazing, and they set her cot beside it. Then the other healer left and Crispin crouched down next to her. “Are you comfortable? Warm enough?”

She smiled weakly, gratefully, and nodded. She could not remember the last time she had felt so warm, and she had only to turn her head to look at the delightful fire. "Can I stay here a while?"

"You can stay here as long as you want," he told her with a smile, "Would you like some water? Something to eat?"

“Just some water.”

He brought a jug and a sturdy cup as well as some pillows that he tucked behind her, helping her to sit up. He poured the water and set the jug nearby. “Here, and there’s more if you want it.”

She was thirsty, as ever, and the water was refreshing, but it was still a cold shock to her throat. She glanced out the door and gave him a cautious look. “Is it all right if I warm it a little before you drain me?”

He looked stricken, but she could not quite read his emotions. Regret? Pity? Shame? His answer was gentle. “I’m not going to drain you, Sula. You’re not a prisoner.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then looked back at the open door. “And there’s no Templar guard?”

He shook his head. “No Templar guard, no guard at all. You’re free and you’re safe here.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she looked down at the cup of water and it glowed gently in her hand. She drank the warmed water and sighed with satisfaction as it soothed her throat. You just need some water.

He was refilling her cup when the other healer returned, holding a larger cup with a handle. “I thought your patient could do with some soup,” she said. “There’s a fat chicken in it, leeks and carrots and some black pepper too.”

Sula could have wept. She nodded and reached out her good hand to take it. A few eager gulps warmed her entire body from within, and Crispin had to urge her to slow down. It was the best thing she had ever tasted. She had not realized how hungry she was.

When she had finished, he helped her to lie back again. “I’ll let you rest now. I’ll be nearby if you need anything.”

She watched him go from the room, carefully leaving her door ajar as he went; she had not even considered the anxiety of a closed door, but she was grateful for that little gap. She could still see the glow of the outer room, and her own little chamber was warm and dim with just firelight. Within moments she was deep asleep.

[Epilogue]

#sula ronoy #crispin amell #toast amell

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