SWDnovel Chapter 49: The Severed Neck Icy Spike and the Death Pact
Chapter 49: The Severed Neck Icy Spike and the Death Pact
The cold autumn rains of late summer ceased before dawn. On the muddy ground surrounding the stone pagoda, two large cast iron cauldrons were set up.
Six shirtless farmers were using iron hooks to force two hundred green-spotted cowhides, part of the Frey family's dowry, into a pot of boiling resin and hot oil. The pungent smell of burnt hides mixed with oil fumes seeped into the stone tower through cracks in the wall.
Maria Frey sat on the edge of the bed in the top-floor stone chamber. The dark red velvet robe she had been given was covered in a layer of foul-smelling mud at the edges. A cold wind blew in through the narrow, unglazed window, chilling her bare shoulders to the bone.
There was no brazier, no maidservants. This was the fate that Marquis Walder had sent her to this swamp for a few thousand pounds of inferior iron.
The oak door hinges emitted a dull, grinding sound.
Otto Hohenzollern pushed open the door and entered. His muddy boots rustled softly on the stone slabs. He didn't untie the sword from his back; the gray linen straps, in the firelight, exuded the astringent smell of bitter herbs.
Maria stood up, took a small step forward into the light of the oil lamp, and instinctively tried to pull her half-undone dress down even lower.
Otto's boot stopped three steps away from the seam in the stone slab.
"Replace velvet with coarse linen. Tears and flesh won't buy you a single oat cake within this wall."
Otto took a heavy leather bag from his waist and slammed it onto the rough wooden table.
"Old Wald is trying to fob you off with a green cowhide. Now that you've taken the Hohenzollern name, you'll leave behind the family bloodline." Otto glanced at her, his voice as sharp as the autumn wind outside, chilly and icy.
"But before my belly swells up, I lack a pair of eyes to see into the cargo hold."
Maria froze on the edge of the bed, stopping her undressing.
"The profits from the salt administration's clandestine operations. I'll allocate two-tenths to your inner quarters' expenses." Otto's fingers tapped on his leather bag. "This income won't go through the official's ledgers; it'll go straight into your private chest under your bed."
The ropes binding the leather bag came loose, and several pieces of crudely refined raw silver and a handful of pure white salt grains, free of any sand or ash, spilled out.
Maria stared at the table. In Twin Towers, all she got in return for the knights' kindness was scraps. But here, in a place where not even a fire was lit, this man had directly bestowed upon her the base price of a territory's privileges.
The next day, a thick, damp fog still clung to the riverbank.
Maria, lifting her skirt, walked to the large open-air iron pot where breakfast was distributed inside the fortress. Inside, a greyish-black wheat porridge mixed with bran and fish bones was simmering. Pollive, holding a wooden board, rigidly calculated the rations. The militiamen in line, draped in thin tunics and clutching sharpened wooden shields, glanced at the women, their necks hunched in the cold, as if they were mere extra stones.
"Have the kitchen select a piece of fatty lamb back and send it to the stone chamber on the top floor." Maria raised her chin, looked at the laborer cooking, and tried to adopt the tone of a mistress.
Toren, the instructor in charge of guarding the grain cauldron, didn't stop sharpening his coarse whetstone. This veteran, who had spent most of his life rolling in the mud of the Red Fork River, slammed his rusty short sword heavily onto the greasy cutting board. The blade pierced the wood two inches deep.
"What's boiling in the pot is the flesh and blood of old soldiers who will soon be braving the wind and rain, fighting for their lives with spears." Toren's voice was rough, like shards of knife. "If a lady's hands can't hold a spear, or fix a leak in the wall, she shouldn't be counting the rations allocated to this training ground."
Maria's face paled for a moment. She glanced at the expressionless, burly men around her. She didn't say anything, swallowed the sour taste in her mouth, and retreated back into the stone tower.
In the muddy ditch at the foot of the south wall,
The thirty condemned prisoners and officers from the Twin Rivers City who had come as part of the dowry escorts had already been stripped of their chainmail. Now, they were forced to wear only thin linen trousers and dig drainage ditches in waist-deep stagnant water.
A wet, peeled whip whistled as it lashed the back of a sergeant panting by the side. His skin was torn and flesh gaped.
For three consecutive days, they were only given a bowl of half-cooked bran paste each day, plus half a day of soaking in ice water. The soldiers' physical strength was completely depleted.
Late at night. Two sergeants, who could still barely move their legs, took advantage of a shift change to sneak back into the dark alley of the inner bunker.
They bypassed the sentry posts and headed towards the newly constructed salt warehouse at the bottom. By stealing a few pounds of expensive refined salt, they could exchange it downstream for the fare to cross the river and escape this man-eating swamp.
The wooden door was pried open by one corner.
Maria stood before an open wooden chest, holding a faint pillar of resin fire, counting her share of smuggled salt.
The door hinges clicked, and two sergeants, reeking of mud, burst in.
As the firelight illuminated them, the officers did not retreat. They drew their daggers hidden beneath rags, and with a ferocity born of hunger, approached the woman in the lamplight.
"Ami, stop pretending to be some kind of noble lady. Get out of the way."
The leading sergeant grinned, revealing a mouthful of broken teeth.
"Back in the stables of Twin Towers, everyone heard you loosening your skirt. If you're too stingy with these grains of salt, once we're all outside the city walls, we'll find you a few men as compensation, just like before."
The sergeant's rough, muddy hands grabbed Maria by the collar and strode forward. His heavy body, accompanied by a gust of foul wind, slammed her onto the rough, dry oatmeal sack.
The torch fell onto the damp mud, making a faint crackling sound. The light dimmed considerably.
Maria's head hit the wheat husks, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the grains of fine white salt that the sergeant had roughly dragged over, the salt that belonged to her personal share of the spoils.
Her right fingertips blindly groped along the edge of the oat bag. Her fingertips touched the iron chisel on the wooden table, used to crush chunks of coarse salt.
She closed her eyes tightly. The soft hand she usually used to hold a wine glass gripped the iron chisel tightly. In the instant the sergeant pressed down and tried to cover her mouth, she used all her strength to stab wildly at the warm spot on the side of his face.
"Pfft."
The chisel didn't hit the skull. The iron tip pierced straight through the thin muscles of the sergeant's face, cheek, and neck, tearing flesh with a dull thud, and then stabbed deep into his throat.
The sergeant's eyes bulged violently. A hissing sound came from his throat as if blood was churning. Warm, black blood spurted from the base of the iron chisel, splashing onto Maria's head, face, and chest.
The heavy body convulsed and crashed down. Maria was pinned beneath it, her body stiff. She didn't let go; instead, she forcefully twisted the iron chisel into the bloody wound.
The other sergeant, who had been frightened away, had just turned around when Instructor Toren, who had rushed over after hearing the commotion, used a bent hook-and-sickle spear to lock the back of his neck and pressed him straight down onto the gravel ground.
The air on the ground floor of the longhouse was thick with the smell of quicklime and the reddish stench of warm blood.
Otto stepped past the torchlight. His boots rustled softly on the white salt mixed with blood and rotting flesh.
Maria collapsed in the blood.
The sergeant's body lay on its side. Maria's long brown hair was matted with blood and gore. She didn't wipe the thick paste from her face; her hands gripped the pulled-out chisel tightly. Her shoulders trembled, and intermittent gasps escaped her throat.
When Otto's boots stopped in front of her, she recoiled sharply. Her hands, stained with bits of flesh and blood, immediately dropped the chisel and, like a fox guarding its prey, clutched the leather pouch containing white salt and raw silver tightly to her chest.
Tears washed away the blood and grime on her face, turning into muddy drops at the corners of her mouth.
"He tried to steal my salt."
She gripped the ropes binding the leather bag tightly, blood and foam stuck in her throat.
"It's mine. No one can take it from me."
Otto didn't reach for the iron chisel that had fallen into the blood-soaked soup. He stared at the red and white liquid that covered her hands.
He unfastened the heavy brass master key to the inner vault from his waist. The metal clanged against the stone slab and fell into the puddle at her feet.
"You never had any of this before," Otto's voice echoed in the dimly lit vaulted ceiling. "Now. The title of Baroness, the sword that protects you, and the dignity you desired. I have given you everything."
Otto looked down at the woman on the ground.
"If you want to keep these things, hold onto this bunch of keys tightly. Go and tear apart those who try to strip you naked and trample you back into the mud."
Maria stared at the bronze key in the blood, panting heavily. Under the pressure of survival, she uttered that lucid, worldly question.
"How long can I use all this stuff you gave me?"
Otto made no knightly vows. He turned his gaze to the howling, chilly late summer wind outside the gate.
"Then pray that my life is tougher than those crows that only know how to hide in the woods."
"As long as our spears keep flying outside the city gates, you can do whatever you want with the abacus in this warehouse."
"But if one day, Theodore's crossbow pierces the gate, then the 'dignity' and 'sword' we speak of now will be nothing more than two dead heads hanging side by side on the same tree trunk outside the south wall."
Maria knelt in the blood.
She didn't wipe the bits of flesh from her cheek. Instead, she instinctively reached out her trembling, cold hand and slowly pulled the torn hem of her velvet dress together to cover it.
Then, she stretched out her hands, ignoring the blood and gore, and dug the set of brass keys from the bloody mud, the iron rings making her knuckles white.
"As long as this copper coin is still between my fingers," Maria said, her voice like coarse sand grinding in the dim light of the oil lamp, "if the adults ever sleep with another peasant woman on the bed in the main house, they'll only have me as their representative."