In the Chamber, Part 4
Friday, February 20, 2004The forest around our home was dense, as if no one had been permitted to thin it, even for a stick of wood to heat the fire. The only thing that made it passable were the trails beat down by horses like mine and the patches of land where the needles had landed too deep for anything to grow through. I had set off meaning to go in a straight direction, stopping when we reached the edge of the land, which i hoped would be marked by some sign or even a line of low stone fence. This idea was soon discarded...I’d be fine for a long time, until a thicket of brambles and brush forced me to turn right or left. Sometimes I would see burrows dug out of the floor, and wonder what lived inside them, hoped for a glimpse of an animal. I saw birds, occasionally, but did not hear them sing or even chirp. I startled something large as I came around the corner, and though I heard it’s panicked flight, I saw nothing. Otherwise, silence as steady and as unsettling as back inside the home.
I got off the horse, meaning to lead her to the stream I thought I saw through a wall of weeds and bush. I knew if there was water, and of there were animals, then there was a way down. And there was. Narrow, muddy, I took the reigns and walked down slowly. In her eagerness for a fresh drink she pushed me, and my boots...pretty and pretty useless...skid in the soft soil. I let go of the reigns and fell backwards, skidding until my feet and one hand splashed into the water, managing to keep most of myself out of it. I grabbed a few pale twigs sticking out from the mud to pull me up, but they pulled free, and I fell back.
The sticks felt funny and I opened my fist to inspect its contents. Barely held together by mud and something else, the finger bones lay in my hand, surprisingly heavy. In the dying rays of the sun, a ruby winked through the sludge and I realized the rough, filthy lump encircling one bone was a ring.
I went into shock, I think, because I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw the fingers as far from me as possible. I was filled with dread, but not worried. After all, we knew that his wife had been found. Instead, I sat, got colder, shivered, while I wondered.
Now, what does one do? I have been poor, though you might not think it from my story so far...hungry, putting my coppers and silvers together to buy enough trim to pretty up a dress to keep up appearances when I’d rather be buying bread, watching money I would have spent on supper being sent to pay off the previous night’s losses. Knowing this, perhaps, you won’t be surprised that one of my first thoughts was whether to keep the ring or not.
Eventually, I worked my way back up the bank. I saw a curve of bone that I’d confused, earlier, with a rock. I pulled at it, brining a skull out of the muck.
And that was when I began to worry, for you see, I figured that they’d found her head. That’s how they would have identified her, his wife, the one who loved rubies. In the hole made by removing the skull, I found something that glittered, despite the mud, and I took it out, and walked it down to the water, and rinsed it until the mud was gone. It was a sapphire earring, some of the stones missing, but nevertheless, it was not something a woman who favored rubies and wore nothing but would mistakenly wear.
My horse raised her head and nickered, and I shoved the skull and the fingers back into the bank. I pocketed the ring and the earring, and walked over to the edge of the path.
I held my hands out from my body, lifting a drenched skirt. Joaquin, from on top of his stallion, winced. “What must you think of me, “ I said, walking up to him. His eyes flickered over my shoulder, along the bank, and back to me. I kept my smile on straight, just like I had when creditors came and looked over my family’s possessions. He knows, a voice in the back of my head whispered. He knows that they’re there. You had best pray that he doesn’t think you do.
He got down from his horse. I could see that he intended to go down to the river, perhaps disguising his need to look at the grave sight by fetching my horse.
“Rachel, come now.” I called, and thank God, she actually listened, blocking the path down by coming up it. He grabbed the reigns, and in the moment it took him to pull her around, I made a decision. As he made to hand them back to me, I wrapped my arms around him and pressed close, not worrying that I was getting mud and water all over his nice clothes. “I’m cold. Let’s go home, perhaps you can help me get warm again?” I pulled his face to mine and kissed him, making the meaning behind my words clear. He pulled away, looking down at me with thinly disguised suspicion, and suddenly, the hard set of his shoulders loosened, and he kissed me back.
It was late, when we finally sat down to dinner, but it was still warm.
He awoke me with a kiss.
I unwillingly opened my eyes. It was still quite dark out, a peek out the window showed the last stars of night and a gray line of sky. I flopped back down with a sigh, and snuggled closer to him. He laughed and said, “I have to go.”
“Already?” I wrapped my arms tighter and squoze my eyes shut. He carefully pulled my arm from around his waist.
“While you were out yesterday I received an urgent letter from one of my business associates. I have to go over see some things. I’ll be back.”
“You didn’t say anything about this last night.” I managed to pry one eye open. This was my favorite time of day, to be honest. He was always softer, when we first woke up. He looked younger, gentler. It was easier to delight him.
He grinned wickedly. “You kept me quite busy, last night.”
“How long will you be?”
“Only a couple of days. I’ll hurry back to you, I promise.”
“Very well.” I closed my eyes and turned over again.
“Shall I bring you something?” I felt the bed move as he sat up.
“Sapphires.” I whispered, half back into dreams.
His motions...reaching for things, getting dressed, stilled. My eyes opened, and I cursed myself. I forced them closed again, and said sleepily. “You know, something purple.”
He put a hand on my waist. “You mean amethysts, sweetheart?”
I sighed. “Yes. To go with the new lavender dress you bought me.”
“I thought you bought the lavender dress to go with your emeralds?” His teasing tone was there. I wondered if I detected the edge of hardness, or if I imagined it out of some weird guilt.
“I did, but Weli said that was gauche. I’m not sure what gauche means, but it sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”
“I've never known a woman who liked amethysts,” he said, then laughed and kissed my temple.
I am told that people keep huge hunting cats, cared for from birth, as pets. They walk them around on leashes, they feed them raw meat from their fingers.
Living with him was like that. He'd love you up, eat morsels from your fingers, be the perfect husband. But you always knew, someday, he might just turn on you. And worse, you’d never be sure why.
The ring and earring burned in my pocket. Not literally, but I knew, constantly, where they were, and couldn’t help but think on them.
Finally, I walked into the treasury room. I poked through boxes, looking for jewelry. Surely, if his first wife was so hot on rubies, there would be more left of it than a ring. in my own jewelry box, since I had told him that I loved emeralds, I had four rings of various kinds for each hand, a half a dozen bracelets, some gold or silver, but most studded with emerald chips in different patters. I also had five necklaces and three sets of earrings and one tiara. Surely she would have just as much, maybe even more, since rumor had it he'd courted her for years.
Most of his things were loose, and most of the boxes were filled with metals...gold, silver, copper. There was even some brass and mithril. My favorite object was a chunk of purple stone the size of my fist, perfect for a paperweight, and I wondered if I could ask for it. It had an inclusion shaped like a butterfly.
I went over to the work bench where tools...a tiny smelter, weighing scales, different things, sat in perfect order. I opened a drawer, and saw boxes of various sizes and small velvet bags. They contained resins, and herbals, s far as I could tell, some so pungent that when I opened them they brought tears to my eyes. In the very back, I found a box of much finer make, and I drug it out. Inside was a jackdaw’s treasure cheat...ruby necklaces lay entwined with beads of amber, onyx and jet, diamond and sapphire, topazes and opals all lay in a knotted mess. I pulled out half mashed links of what had once been a diamond collar, halves of a sapphire studded bangle that had been sliced in two. I pulled the earring out of my pocket and began matching it with the pieces I saw, looking for a mate, or a necklace that would have been part of it’s set. I found a mate, in a nest of fine silver links that had beads of jet strung on it, spaced so many inches a part. I held them together. Some of the chips were missing from the edge of it, but I knew they had been made together. The pinky nail sized sapphire that hung in the center was exactly the same shade of blue. I heard something clatter down the hall, and I shoved everything back into the box, out the box back into the drawer, and put the purple stone on the shelf by the door, to give me an alibi. I closed the door and ran down the hall, looking for him.
The hall buy the red framed door faced the stable yard, and so I ran down it, to look out the window. No sign of his horse, though I could see Rachel contentedly grazing in the paddock.
A flare of cold light behind me reflected off the panes, and I turned.
Around the red frame of the forbidden door, words had been burned, black against the blood red.
“Be Bold, “ they read, “Be bold...”
“But not too bold.” Joaquin said. I looked around. He wasn’t in the hall.
I stepped closer to the door. I’d heard him, plain as day.
“Yes.”
I pressed my ear to the door. “Joaquin?”
“I’ve locked myself in, wife.” There was a mocking quality to his words, and while one would assume he was making fun of himself...after all, he’d locked himself in...I felt that the humor was directed at me. And it wasn’t the quiet, delighted humor, as if he found me constantly endearing, either, but something much crueler.
“How...how did you do that?”
“I came back to fetch something...and now the door won’t open. It must be locked from the outside. perhaps you...?”
“I didn’t hear your return. And I didn’t see your horse...”
“The servant must have taken him inside to groom him. And perhaps you were yet asleep. I’ve been stuck in here for such a long time.”
I fumbled at my chatelaine belt. The little black key slipped itself into my hands.
“I’m so thirsty,” he whispered. One hand flat on the door, the other hand slowly bright the key to the lock. My hand shook so badly that it knocked against the metal. I thought again of the first day here.
“Do not place the key to the lock.” he had said. “Do not open the door. Do not enter in.” I dropped the keys and stepped away.
“No matter what.” I whispered.
“Wife, what is going on?”
“I love you.” I said, backing away. I felt dazed. I tripped over my own feet and had to put hand out on the wall to support myself.
“You can’t leave me like this! Wife!”
“I’m so sorry.” I said, as something began to howl, and throw itself against the door.
I fainted at the mouth of the hall way, and when I came to, it was night again.
He found me laying on the sofa, as uncomfortable as it was, staring wide eyed at the fire. I was not going upstairs by myself for any reason. It did not occur to me to ask how he got out of the room...I knew that, whoever I had the conversation with, it wasn’t with him.
You might be thinking that, this would be the right time to introduce these weird things into the conversation. “Hello, husband. While you were out I went over by the door...don’t worry, I didn’t open it, but I did have a conversation with some scary creature that spoke with your voice.” Or, “By the way, when I was riding the other day, I found some body parts...would you happen to know why you have an earring belonging to the dead body laying in your drawer?
It doesn’t much matter, you see. It’s what I was saying, about the hunting cats, earlier. He may be a murderer, and I may be the next victim. But when he scolds me gently for sleeping on the sofa (It’s freezing in this room. You’ll get sick.”) and when he picks me up and carries me up stairs promising a present for me, and he’s so soft and so loving, I can not feature it.
He’s often a cold, hard man, but he softens for me. He cherishes me. It makes me feel special, like I’ve done something no other woman could.
At the top of the stairs he puts me down, and takes a sack off his back. “Let’s put this away.” he says, and goes over to the treasure room. I unlock it for him, and he steps inside, lighting torches with a flicker of his hand. He opens the sack and beckons me over, and pulls out a length of pale purple pearls, each as large around as a fingernail, and long enough that he loops it around my neck and drapes it into my hair. They feel like warm satin.
“They’re beautiful,” I say, and he steps back to admire the effect. Something crunches under his foot. He lifts his boot slowly. His nostrils flare, and I can tell he recognizes the mangled bit of blue and silver.
“I’m so sorry,” I manage. I thrust my hand into my pocket, where I had been certain I’d shoved the earring in my rush. It wasn’t there, of course, and neither was the ruby ring. There was a hole, one that should not and had not been there before.
Where was the ruby ring? I looked around, trying not to be transparent.
“What were you doing in here?” he asked, casually as he opened the drawer.
“Being careless with valuable things, obviously.” I could not conceal the nervousness in my voice as he opened the box. Of course, the mate was sitting right on top of the scramble. It even sparkled in the light.
“I found it outside.” I said before he could ask. “In the back yard. I don’t like sapphires, and was looking for a place in here to store it.”
He nodded and knelt to scoop up the earring pieces, then threw them in the box. he slammed it shut, then shut the drawer with much more force than was needed.
“The rest can wait until tomorrow.” he said, taking my arm. The torches went out, and in the darkness, he placed his lips to my ear. “I believe you because I choose to, not because I do.”
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Wow. Over 9 thousand words...this story just keeps on going. Will I wind it up soon, or will I be writing a novella?
Today, the thing I noticed the most is that I need to put in some more context. I introduce elements here...such as her finding the skull, that need more work to have an impact. I also need to decide for sure whether they've actually found the first wife...is it better for the body, as I've had it, to be found, or to just have rumors? The rumors thing I was avoiding because I've seen that done a bit in classical gothic romances. Is it more effective to have:
Knowledge that one body was found, chopped up. And then have Tessa discover signs of, just not that body, but another, bringing home the fact personally that Joaquin may have indeed killed his first wife and that he -- or someone else -- has killed others?
Or have it all hinted at, increasing the shock value...not only does she find the body (the woman didn't run off with another husband after all) but there's a second?
Another context addition lies in her past...we get some of her own past with her gambler guardian, but I think I need to add another hint of two before hand...right now it's a bit of a surprise.
What I like is the cat and mouse element...it's becoming an exploration of something I've often noticed in stories, something I, myself, find incredibly alluring...the wounded, tragic man. why are men like Joaquin so attractive?
I also like the hint that maybe he's not so vile after all. He wants to believe her.
I don't write on the weekend...work on other things...so there won't be another part unless I'm super inspired, until next week. Not that I've been all that timely these week, eh?
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 6:56 PM
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