Purple Monster

She watched him pouring and mixing and studded her arms, the chickens had been quiet scary, she supposed most people wouldn’t have continured after the first one maybe two pecks but her pain thresh hold was high and she had lived in places were if you didn’t carry out the request no matter what you where facing death or worse the deaths of those too weak to work.

MAtthews behaviour was also remarkably odd and she couldn’t quiet place, he seemed to be struggling inside and the cuts had just sort of broken something in him. ‘Why are so concerned with the cuts?’ she asked suddenly breaking the silence, her voice seemed to loud in the confined space. He continued to saok a piece of rag and then he grabbed her wrist. His grip hurt and she had to fight down the urg to flip him and run. He begain to clean the peaks. It was… excrusiating and she knew all about pain. She gritted her teeth to stop from calling out, she held her arm ridged to prevent her from whipping it back. The hard tension of her arm would be making it more painfull but she was having a proud moment and nothing would make her cry at this junctor.

‘Philip did the same, but I didn’t see the scratches until they were festered and he was running the fever.’ MAtthew said quietly and carmly.

‘Philip?’ She asked though the exertion in holding back the pain rocked her voice.

‘My brother, we shared this cell, he had only just arrived, 12 yrs old. They say you are Master then but he was still so young.’ The voice was dead and it sank into her mind and rested at its centre she felt the dread, she knew what was coming but also knew he had to tell her. She wanted to scream stop at him, but his pain was already her’s.

‘He died I nursed him for 3 weeks but the fever burnt him up and his lips went blue and his breathe fast and weak. My family have disowned me.’ He begain to slosh orange liquid on the wounds and then begain to clean everything up. She watched him in mute silence. She wanted to comfort him but she couldn’t.

‘How’d he get scratched?’ she asked finially. The words were jarring and ugly.

Matthews shoulders slumped, ‘he was helping harvest the gooseberies and sloes.’ She nodded, the plants both had long viscous spikes and an over enthusiastic 12 yr old boy could well hurt himself quiet badly if he had never under gone manual labour.

‘It my fualt.’ he said quietly.

‘No its not, he would have been the same with anyone who took him to harvest.’ she shock her head emthatically. He smiled, it seemed twisted.

‘I ment you,’ he said simply.

‘Oh.’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘I wanted to show you how unglamours life her could be, you shouldn’t be hiding here like this.’ He wasn’t meeting her eye – this seemed to be his perpetual state and it was starting to grate.

She snorted, ‘Do you know how I ended up with the priest?’ she asked half angry half amused. He shook his head.

‘I was living in a self built hovel in the woods – the cathedral was in ruins and he was injuried in the burning remains. Glamour is not something I’m looking for, and as for hard work, you don’t know how hard it can be. You work hard as monks but you get down time, you get to sit and think during prayers and thats more that alot I’ve known.’ The anger was bubbling up in her and she wanted to hit him. Wanted to punch the stone walls, she hated him and the world he represented and herself as she didn’t fit in, she never did. All the different cultures she had seen she was emulating them, she didn’t truelly fit in any of them. A memory battered against her, she ignored it.

He looked perplexed and ashamed, ‘I thought… I assumed you were some catholic lady he’d rescued?’ He looked concerned. ‘Why the lie about being Henrys half brother?’ he asked.

‘That was his idea, I got cuaght, they thought I was some lords son or something becuase I speak French and Latin and my English – well its not the English I learnt, its… changed.’ these conversations always did her head in – she had to give him enough so that he saw where she was coming from but not enough to have him panic and think her either mad or demon possessed.

He frowned, ‘But if your not from one of the noble houses then were are you from,’ she sighed she’d been hoping to avoid that question. She looked at him and then away agian quickly what could she tell him? That she was from nowhere, that she’d been everywhere? That wouldn’t sit well with him and could cost her her life.

‘I… I don’t know,’ she sagged. ‘All I remember was shouting and screaming and… blood.’ when in doubt tell the trueth was one of her mottos it had worked well in the past.

He nodded and to her suprise he put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it slightly awkardly but very companionly. She felt the warmth of him spread through her. He smiled saddly at her, she smiled back, emotions rocking her from the core, she swallowed them down and put a big rock on top.

‘Did you have brothers or sister that you remember?’ he asked gently. She nodded, that was the thing that always spiked the grey of her memory. Large liquid eyes darker than midnight, and then the others – the ones like her less elegant perhapse but long lived like her. And humans there had been humans too.

‘My brother was strung up, on a cross, I saw him.’ Her voice broke and she felt the weakness of sadness pour in, this things these events had centeries possibly thousands of years between them and yet her mind always trudged one tradigy out with another – if she didn’t quash them she would drown in their misery. He sat down heavily next to her.

‘Sounds like you got cuaght up in the Underground religous war in Europe, the Luthur and Anabaptists have a tendency to ended up with familys masacared.’ He said patting her hand awkardly.

She nodded, ‘They also sluaghtered enough of the Catholics in regions they’ve taken over.’ she shuddered. It was the same a the crusades the same as so many other wars. Humans were good at spilling each others blood, she wondered if it was part of their design, she didn’t mean in a god type way and she couldn’t track down the origion of the thought. She shrugged and turned to Matthew.

‘So what’s going to happen to me?’ It was a blunt question but she wanted to feel safe if only for a little while.

He shrugged, ‘Well I wont tell them about you, I thought about it – most of last night, your an abomination to the teachings, technically I think you count as a witch.’ he looked into her eyes in this climate they were a grey green though they had turned brown in the deserts and cobolt blue on the tundra. They flicked from side to side as if he were searching for the evil in her, ‘but I’ve seen you harm no body and from what you’ve said you saved at least one life.’ He shrugged.

‘But you should leave, you should get marriad – we could say you were a nun – I hear they are arranging marrages for those they haven’t burned.’ she shook her head.

‘Marrage I don’t think will suit me,’ she said quietly, besides his closseness was starting to drive her wild once more. She looked at him from under her lashes.

‘Don’t…’ he said, ‘Just don’t.’ He got up and walked out of the cell. She kicked off her foot covering and drew her knees up under her chin. This was either going to be heaven or hell and MAtthews self control and guilt levels would govern which was to be the outcome. She curled herself up into the tightest ball she could manage and tried to trap the warmth he;d given her.

Half an hour later and Henry came bounding into her cell, looking angry and flustered, ‘are you ok?’ he said grabbing her peaked arms to studdy them. He clucked his tongue and then flopped down dramatically on the seat next to her. ‘That idiot Matthew – I tried to tell you this morning, you shouldn’t do the menial tasks, your being trained up as a possible heir, your supposed to spend your time studying or hunting not collecting eggs adn risking death from some ransid cuts. If your injured hunting or even killed they will make a song or at least a tapastry about you if you die from fever from chickens you’ll be swept aside in history!’ He’d stood up again and was pacing backwards and forwards in the suddenly too small room.

‘He should hav e known better but he gets ideas in his head like “a monastic education should include the earthly toil as well as the latin” idiot the complete idiot. It’s just becuase he’s from the merchant class, and now they have a little power they think the whole country should bow to them!’ And so he continued for several minutes getting more and more wound up until he was starting with threats of violence towards MAtthew.

‘No don’t hit him please, it was my fualt honest, he didn’t make me go to the hen house I wanted to do the minual stuff’ she interserted between bouts of almost hysterical anger.

‘He cleaned me up too – look he took me to some old monk to ask for medical supplies and stuff.’ Carey nodded and then sat down heavily.

‘Sorry I get a bit carried away! I was a bit shaken this morning – theres news that a friars been hung in his own gatehouse. Things are starting to get out of control. I know this monastry was chosen for us becuase it leans towards the new religion but The King is killing Anabaptist for herasey the same as the Catholics and I’m not sure what he’s counting as wwhich religion.’ She nodded the country was onn the brink of a change or possibly just annialation. Under such cercumstances the monastry could be a haven or a prison and only time would tell. New laws on vagrancy were being passed so wondering the English country side was out.

For the time beign she was trapped and Henry more so. ‘I was just worried about you – you feeling ok?’ She shrugged, her teeth had begun to throb adn she was starving hungry. These were indicators she was fighting an infection off. She should have been more careful.

‘Anyway its also breakfast time – you coming?’ he did seem genual concerned, she nodded and followed him out of the cell after reappying her foot coverings.

Again the breakfast was cold and it bearly touched the sides – she was still so hungry she was starting to wonder if there was a way of gettin extra food – she’d ask Henry at some point but a wave of tiredness hit her. Her body was reserving resources to fight the infections.

She decided she really really hated chickens, but then the thought of roast chicken sneaked into her mind and she begain to salivate again.

The meal was consumed in silence – all of them sitting on long wooden benches at long wooden tables she looked around and was suprised at the lack of icons in the room. Instead of every inch of stone and wood being painted in clashing colours and intracate patterns – all meaning something they were just bear yellow sandy collums with little fluting. It was a very simple building compared to the other religous institutions she had been in.

Posted: Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
Categories: Uncategorized.
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