Purple Monster

The dream flickered and there was shouting, there was a buzz in her head, the intensity pounding out thought, she was hiding hidden, flames licking at surfaces the sky a charred ruin, her lungs clogged and she choked.

Suffocating she awoke.

Darkness pressed in on her and the air was a damp chill pressing in on her face, the stone bunk she was on seemed to be drawing all the warmth out of her body. A clanging painfull noise peirced her head, she had a blocked nose and a headache. It was early in the morning and she ffelt dreadful.

Movement from the other side of the room cuaght her attention, Matthew appaered to be up and already dressed, ‘You awake?’ he hissed at her.

‘Yes, what time is it?’ She asked feeling annoyed – he’d woken her up with his movement and with the clanging of the damn bell there was no way she would be able to get back to sleep.

Light flared with a the smell of sulphur, and Matthew lit a few of the candles about the place. A fussy warm light filled the room but it was somehow fuzzy and didn’t reach the edges of the room, flickering the way it was it felt insubstancial against the chill spring weather.

He looked over at her bunk, ‘Are you actually going to get up?’ he asked abit shortly.

Realising that she was in a Monestry and remembering what the ones in France had been like she scrambled out of bed and begain to get dressed in a woozy sort of way. Matthew hurriedly tried to turn away from her. She collided with him anyway. He recoiled and she felt a sadness spread inside her. His long fingers patchy from the cold wrapped themselves around a candle to busy himself with more candle lighting.

‘So what time is it?’ she asked. Looking at the sky through the unpanned window she was sure it was pretty early 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and they had stayed up too late chatting about princes and successions.

‘4:30 of course we have half an hour before morning pray, then you and me are going to clean the chicken house out and collect the eggs to deliver to the cook.’ there was a grit in the boy-mans voice. A resentment that had not been there before.

‘Ok,’ she shrugged and washed her face in icy water. The sting of the cold made her a little more awake and set about arranging her bed. Her skills as someone in a Holy order where out of practice but making everything in order seemed to cheer Matthew up at least.

He even smiled at her as they left the room.

Morning pray was as always a trial for her, she had to maintain silence and an uncomftable position, she had always struggled with this sort of thing her system seemed to brim with a sort of vibrating energy. It ment her responses were good and she noticed things and could get stuff done and it wasn’t like she didn’t like sitting still becuase she did but when she wanted to. Her stomache was also complaining quiet heavily, months of malnutrition didn’t go away in a few weeks. And before that time her system had been healing so no reserves had been stored. Even if she was eating four square meals a day she would still be hungry.

She tried not to fidget and pondered on why she was apparently going to stay here. She had a horrible feeling it had nothing to do with self preservation and everything to do with a cute gangly novice who was being sultary at her. Matthew’s physique was indeed the type she went for and the burning intensity present in his eyes was enough to make her fall straight into the self destructive abyss that was was her in Love. Her in love resulted in others safty coming before hers, of her doing stupid things that often resulted in pain both emotional and physical, it lead to a desolate place where she found herself more on her own than she had at the beginning and yet she craved it. She knew how it always ended – either she watched them slowely die, tearing herself up over it or she watched them drift away when the urg for children finially drove them from her embrace.

She felt sick inside but Matthew was kneeling next to her and a sweat warmth was radiating off of him. She wanted to taste those lips that were stained with the metaphysical blood of christ, she wanted to lay with him, but knew how dangerous that would be. Love taken unthinkingly of those so deeply indoctronated could lead them to self hate and the turning of the blame onto the object of their affection. Many times had a girl been burnt for witchcraft becuase an Abbot or similar had desired her or unthinkingly she had seduced the young and zelost novice.

It wasn’t even like holy men where a novelty for her especially in a time when the oath of chastity where more about not marrying than about sex at least with the priests in the villages and towns those who lived a monastic existance had generally sworn off the carnal as well as the marital status. She wondered if Matthew was there for religon or education?

She felt it would be the access to knowledge that would be driving him rather than a devout christian need but then they could be the most dangerous. A man who doubts his supposed convictions and who’s power relied on being seen to have those convictions would be more likely to over react, to carry them to knew and torturous extremes than a man who truelly believes.

She sighed loudly getting herself a glare from a young Monk opposite her, off course he wasn’t supposed to be looking at anyone whilst praying but he was glaring at her with an intensity equal to Matthews, but there was a greasy feeling to it. She took an instant dislike to him.

The prayer session dragged on and on and her thoughts stretched to fill the gap, she felt a stab of memory at a monks particular pronouncement in latine – his accent stiring within her the old latin she knew. This modern stuff sounded so course and well lout-ish too her.

And then just as her mind started to find the space to turn around and look at itself – a place she found refreashing and the worst possible place to end up, the prayer session ended and she was heading out to do chores with Matthew. Carey noticed them heading out the door and tried to intercept but the albino dragged him away. The young prince looked over his shoulder puzzeled at her.

Finially they reached a door that lead outside outside and not just into some inner court yard, little squares of grass with maybe one tree. The air somehow felt freasher. She laughed at the sky and then shut it off abruptly when MAtthew glared at her.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered and followed him sullenly across the damp grass to were the animals were kept. He gave her a basket and they ducked into the hen house, it stunk, messy splodges covered everything, her feet slide on them. She wanted to hold her breath but knew that it would only make worse on the giant intake of breath she would have to make. She hurriedly begain to hunt for eggs amongst the aggressive chickens. Reptilian eyes stared at her from the roasts and her arms were scratched to ribbons before she had half filled the basket. She really hated birds in enclosed spaces like this, somehow she got the feeling they were going to eat her if she stayed still long enough.

The drizzel of the morning greeted them as they left the animals, she breathed the air in gratefully. ‘You arms look bad,’ Matthew said suddenly, he was looking at the spots of blood dripping onto some of the speckeld shells.

‘They’re fine.’ She said looking away from him, for some reason she wanted him to think her tough and reliable. They walked to the kitchens in silence, the lack of spoken words was starting to grate on her even though she had spent all those months in isolation, normally she would have found voices loud and jarring but this time she needed the companionship the voices brought. A monastry was not the best place for this.

They placed the baskets on the sides she hovered whilst Matthew had a brief and animated conversation with an old wirey monk, everything about him seemed to be made of old iron. Hair, eyes, paled grey skin and stringly muscles. She wasn’t listening to them, rather she was looking at the cook stove and wondering how likely she was to get sick with food poisoning. Blood from hanging carcasses was being collected messily into pots to make various things with. Black pudding she supposed but didn’t really want too know. The hanks of meat showed far to much of the animals origonal structure for her too.

She remembered too many times when poeple had looked like that. Suddenly she felt an urg to go veggi.

She saw the wire monk move and almost clobbered him, restraining herself hard she allowed him to pull up the corse sleeves of the working habbit she was wearing. The nice ‘prince’ cloths she had left on their hanger with an idea of keeping them nice. She had no way of replacing them if they got ruined and they could proove more than useful. The old man clucked with his tongue, ‘Matthew you were right these will need Iodine, go and clean this pretty boy up, fever will hopefully be avoided.’ He dimissed her as if she were a piece of cow shit and Matthew was leading her out of the steam and blood filled room. The old man was muttering to himself about babes that should be men. Puzzeled she fallowed the gangly novice. The cuts weren’t bad, yes they would probably go bad but her system generally coped with that sort of thing easily and she was looking at maybe one uncomftable night.

‘The cuts are fine!’ she said a bit too shrilly, dark eyes glared at her.

‘They are covered in chicken shit! You’ll be lucky not to be burning up with fever by tonight.’ He turned from her and turned a large black metal handle, his hand was shaking.

‘I’ll be fine honest,’ she said.

He sighed and pulled her in the door. He refused to let her say more and she found herself seated in their room whilst he went off to get things. She felt slightly irritated at him and also a flush reached her cheeks, never the less this was an over reation. It was true cuts could kill but people just sort of took it as divine providence and half the time didn’t bother to disenfect even if they knew they could.

He arrived looking awkward with a steaming bowl and a leather satchel.

‘The apocraphy said I had to clean everyone of those scratches and that I’m to pin you down if you struggle.’ He placed the bowl on the stone bunk, the bedding had been rolled up and placed in little custom made alcoves.

She smile at the joke, ‘And why would I struggle?’ she asked trying desperatly not to sound coy.

‘Becuase its going to burn, I’ve got a mix here to add to the water, wood alchahol and believe me it burns especially on open wounds, and those pecks would hurt just with the hot water.’ His voice was dead, as if he was going through a ritual she started to feel a disquiet. she rolled her shoulders realising the tension she was building in them.

‘I’ll put some Iodine on when I’m finished but we will have to make a journey to make some more when your better.’ He’d opened the satchel – it was full of little crudely made glass vials.

Posted: Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 @ 12:25 am
Categories: Uncategorized.
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