The room lay deeply ensconced in the belly of the earth. The raw stone ceiling fled upwards into shadow, arching out of sight, bathed in darkness. Water dripped from unseen arteries, flowing down cold rock walls and into oval basins where it would shimmer, black and opaque. Tables of solid stone, hard and rectangular, were situated about the room in a precise pattern. Weak, yellow light trembled from lanterns hung here and there on the glistening, wet walls. And from high above, thin shafts of daylight would pierce the gloom for a few hours each day, before fading again.
She couldn’t remember how the world had sounded before the dripping water. It was always there now, insistent and ubiquitous in her ears. Waking, sleeping, eating, relieving herself. The water dripped, dripped, dripped. Yet she did not despise the sound of it.
Three men lay upon the stone tables. The rest were bare. Her hand was resting upon a man’s chest, the meat of her palm nestled into the valley between his pectoral muscles. The air around them was cool and damp. Her ankles felt chilled where the long, colorless dress ended and left the small swatch of skin exposed.
“Are any left alive, Mornil?” A man had emerged from the shadows at the fringes of the room. Tall and lean, with dark hair that flowed down his shoulders and eyes like the sky just before moonrise. The sight of him made her think inexplicably of scavenger animals.
“This man is still alive,” she answered. Her voice was flat and smooth, not unlike the black water that quivered in the oval basins nearby. “His heart is weakening.”
The sound of voices had stirred the supine man of which they talked. His jaw moved up and down, stretching pallid cheeks. He drew up his eyelids and looked for their faces with rolling eyes like that of a drunkard. From between cracked lips, the man’s voice guttered forth.
“Can you understand what he says?” asked the dark man.
“He wishes to die, my lord,” Mornil replied.
“Mm,” said the tall shadow, continuing to rove the room on slow, plodding feet. “Not yet.” He lifted a finger and tapped the air. “Not yet.”
The woman bent her gaze to the man upon the stone slab. His milky pupils found hers and held them. The skin beneath her hand was hot and slick with sweat, despite the chill of the room. She felt his heart, fluttering against her palm like a frantic bird, anxious to be set free.
“I will stay with you,” she whispered. There was little trace of compassion on her exquisitely sculpted features. If her declaration was one of sympathy, it was perhaps reflected faintly in the depths of the large, ochre pools of her eyes, and nowhere else.
“What was that?” The dark figure swiveled smoothly on his heel to face her.
Mornil straightened her spine and returned his gaze evenly. “Nothing at all, my lord. A breath of wind, perhaps.”
“Mm,” he hummed again, retracing his steps lazily until he stood on the opposite side of the ailing man. His head canted slightly while he peered down his sharp nose. “We are not quite finished with this one. Five drops of belladonna, to keep him with us till dawn.” His hawkish eyes flicked up to the woman’s face, and his voice descended into a lower timbre that she felt in her bones. “You learn well, my child. Your mother was wise to send you to me.”
“She did not send me,” said Mornil, turning away and withdrawing her hand from the dying man’s breast. Silent steps of graceful motion carried her to a shelf that had been roughly hammered into the stone wall. Dozens of bottles, crocks, and small boxes were lined in a row. “I came because I wanted to learn. And because your errand-dog threatened my mother and I.” Pale fingers fluttered up and down the assorted containers before settling upon a slender dark blue bottle.
An icy quiet thickened the air behind her shoulders. She could feel the disapproval beating against the back of her neck.
“Five drops,” repeated the dark-eyed figure, and then his footsteps mingled with the sound of the trickling water, growing faint as he retreated from her.
When all was still again, and the room once more reminiscent of the tomb she sometimes fancied it to be, she returned to the table of the dying man. His eyes still rolled in their sockets, and his lips parted and closed endlessly like a gasping fish. She bowed her head to look upon him more fully. His ear was torn where a golden hoop had been crudely yanked free from its binding. Ebon lines that were once sharp around his eyes were now smeared down his temples and into his raven hair from the tears he had wept in pain and delirium. She placed a hand upon his breast again. She wanted to feel his heartbeat once more.
Leaning down so that her lips were close to his bloodied ear, she whispered, “Open your mouth. You must keep it open. Just for a moment.”
The man obeyed. She removed the dropper from the bottle and held it over the gaping maw. His breath smelled of death to her nostrils.
Gazing at him with hard, flat eyes, she said softly, “Be at peace with your fathers.”
She counted out twenty drops of belladonna, watching each one glisten, quiver, and fall onto his tongue.
