Soul of the Fire

Fitch couldn't see the source of the sounds. He silently snaked his body around and turned his face over to use his left eye to look under the door off to the right. He slid closer until his nose touched the door.

He blinked in disbelief and then again in horror.

Beata was on her back on the floor. Her blue dress was bunched up around her waist. There was a man, his backside naked, between her bare, open legs, going at her fast and furious.

Fitch sprang to his feet, jolted by what he'd seen. He retreated several steps. He panted, his eyes wide, his gut twisting with the shock of it. With the shock of having seen Beata's bare, open legs. With the Minister between them. He turned to run down the stairs, tears stinging his eyes, his mouth hanging open, pulling for air like a carp out of water. Footsteps echoed. Someone was coming up. He froze in the middle of the room, ten feet from the door, ten feet from the steps, not knowing what to do. He heard the footsteps shuffling up the stairs. He heard two voices. He looked to the halls on each side, trying to decide if one might offer escape, if one or both might offer a dead end where he would be trapped, or guards who might throw him in chains.

The two stopped on the landing below. It was two women. Ander women. They were gossiping about the feast that night. Who was going to be there. Who wasn't invited. Who was. Though their words were hardly more than whispered, in his stiff state of wide-eyed alarm he could make them out clear enough. Fitch's heart pounded in Ms ears as he panted in frozen panic, praying they wouldn't come up the stairs all the way to the third floor.

The two fell to discussing what they were going to wear to catch Minister Chanboor's eye. Fitch could hardly believe he was hearing a conversation about how close above their nipples they dared wear their neckline. The image it put in Fitch's head would have been blindingly pleasant had he not been trapped and about to be caught where he shouldn't be, seeing something he shouldn't have seen, and maybe get himself put out on the street, or worse. Much worse.

One woman seemed bolder than the second. The second said she intended to be noticed, too, but didn't want more than that. The first chuckled and said she wanted more than to be noticed by the Minister, and that the other shouldn't worry because either of their husbands would be lauded to have their wife catch the full attention of the Minister.

Fitch turned around to keep an eye on the Minister's door. Someone had already caught the attention of the Minister. Beata.

Fitch took a careful step to the left. The floor creaked. He stilled, alert, his ears feeling like they were stretching big. The two below were giggling about their husbands. Fitch pulled back the foot. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

The two below started moving as they talked. He held his breath. He heard a door squeak open. Fitch wanted to scream over his shoulder at them to hurry it up and go somewhere else to gossip. One of the women mentioned the other's husband-Dalton.

The door closed behind them. Fitch exhaled.

Right in front of him, the Minister's door burst open.

The big stranger had Beata by the upper arm. Her back was to Fitch as she was put out of the room. The man shoved her, as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow. She landed on her bottom with a thud. She didn't know Fitch was standing right behind her.

The stranger's unconcerned gaze met Fitch's wide eyes. The man's thick mat of dark hair, in tangled stringy strands, hung to his Shoulders. His clothes were dark, covered in leather plates and straps and belts. Most of his weapons were lying on the floor in the room. He looked a man who didn't need them, though, a man who could, with his big callused hands, crush the throat of nearly anyone.

When he turned back to the room, Fitch realized to his horror that the odd cape was made from scalps. That was why it looked like it was covered with patches of hair. Because it was covered with patches of hair, human hair. Every color from blond to black.

From beyond the doorframe, the Minister called the stranger by name, "Stein," and pitched him a small white handful of cloth. Stein caught it and then stretched Beata's underpants between two meaty fingers for a look. He tossed them into her lap as she sat on the floor struggling for breath, trying mightily not to cry.

Stein looked up into Fitch's eyes, completely unconcerned, and smiled. His smile wrinkled aside his heavy mat of stubble.

He gave Fitch a larking wink.

Fitch was stunned by the man's disregard for someone being there, seeing what was happening. The Minister peered out as he buttoned his trousers. He, too, smiled, and then pulled the door shut behind himself as he stepped out into the hall.

"Shall we visit the library now?"

Stein held out a hand in invitation. "Lead the way, Minister."