Monday 2 December 2019

One last lullaby


You may think me mad, and mad I am for it is death that I am waiting for –though it be a long time in coming; she will make sure of that. Each night she takes it from me in exquisite agony. Do you know that there is a point when sensation becomes so intense it is near impossible to tell pleasure from pain? I had heard this but never sought to discover whether it was true or not; now each night takes me further and further past that point and each night I become less of a man.
The story; my story started off with so much hope: a young man seeking his fortune, cock-sure of himself; born of poor parents who sent him out in the world with nothing more than a song in his heart, the clothes on his back and the luck of the ragged. I was a quick learner and educated myself by the road, picking up whatever language I could from those I passed. You have heard this story many times, I’m sure, but I was happy to be the living testament to it – I believed most strongly that we create our own luck; and for a time this was true.
I had many adventures –the life of a vagabond is varied and no two days are the same. One day you can be sleeping under the stars with a roasted coney in your belly and a warm fire by your side, the next hiding from the local militia in a cave, shivering ‘mongst the cold and slimy walls. Hardships I could always endure for it was those that made the good times so much sweeter.
And there were good times; there was always wine, good food and women if you knew how to look and how to take! I was blessed with good looks and a boyish charm that hid the cold nature of my inner most. It was easy to tell the young girls what they wanted to hear in the various villages on the way and then leave when I had taken my fill with nary a thought to them excepting a notch on my walking crook.
But it was whilst I was sitting minding my own at the local inn at Dunninsford where I met him that was to change my life. I had recently charmed a few crowns out of a local doxy who took a shining to me –she believed my sob story about my parents dying; gave me a lay for free and the crowns to boot. (All I can say is that she can’t have been on the game for long; most other scut’s I know have raised their cynicism up to the level of an art form!) I was quietly smug and took no notice to the other people that were around me –I found it best to mind my own. Trouble only finds you if you go looking for it (or so I thought at the time). Consequently I didn’t see the man eyeing me; sizing me up –it could have been for a casket or to mark me as a fool.  In the end it could well have been for both of those as he turned to me and asked a simple question.
“How would you like to earn the wages of a Prince for doing no more work than a pauper?” I looked at him: the eyes bedevilled and bloodshot, recessed in a hollow stare; a stubbled and fear etched face hiding the clothes of a noble man, no less. These were no rags of a street seller or beggar but fine silks and embroidery. His hair was finely cut too; albeit bestraggled and unkept. I turned away from him and laughed briefly.
“There’s nout you can spin me that I haven’t tried myself, mate; nothing you could give me that you wouldn’t steal back when my back was turned. I’ve been doing this too long; go back to your pint and I to mine and we’ll both be much better off.” I replied but he weren’t having any of it.
“This is no joke. I have need of a strong, smart man… with his wits about him and that can hold his own.” He explained, motioning to the bar keep to serve drinks to the both of us. He tipped the bar man in gold. “You can see I have wealth; I have no need to rob you of yours.”
“Having wealth don’t mean you’re not desiring of more. In some ways it just makes you more determined.” I replied, nodding to the barman for the beer. I drank the first mouth full and knew that I had nothing else to lose by hearing this man out so I turned back to him and bade him continue.
“Well, I am determined. Determined to live at all costs… and this is where you can help me, and for doing nothing than to watch me sleep.” I laughed at this and immediately realised what he was getting at.
“I ain’t no god-cursed buggering soddomite. I suggest you leave now, matey whilst you still can.”
“You misunderstand me, Sir. I ask for nothing more than what I have said already –someone to watch over me and protect me whilst I sleep…” His eyes glassed over, the gaze pleading.
“You have made enemies then?” I ventured.
“Yes; enemies that would think twice if they saw another watching over me. You have arms of your own? Weapons?”
“No… save a small paring knife.” I lied. One of the first rules is to lie regarding weapons. If people know what you are carrying then you are easily disarmed; the less they know the more damage you will be able to do should the need arise.
“That’s ok; I have plenty. God willing you won’t need them.. .but it always pays to be forewarned.” There was a slight twitch in his eye when he said that but I thought nothing of it. “It could be dangerous, but you will be well rewarded when all is done. In the meantime you will live in my humble abode and what is mine will be yours until the job is over. Is this agreeable to you?” I nodded and finished my beer in a few gulps before being shown to the man’s abode –a castle no less!
Gerbert of Auriliac was a man of means –or at least his father was; and it was actually his son that I was to oversee the next few nights –he had wanted to keep his son’s reputation free from scandal, hence the lies.. Gerbert’s father, Raymond, explained to me that his son had become infatuated with the beautiful daughter of a local university dean. So enraptured had he become that even when she turned him down, due to his lowly birth-right and lack of social standing, he took matters into his own hand.
We had just entered the castle threshold and upon hearing this information I stopped before Raymond shut the door behind me.
“Now look; vagabond I may be but I’ll not actively break the laws so flagrantly –especially not when witnesses abound. I won’t do anything that’ll end me up in jail.” I said.
“No.. Please don’t think he did anything like that.” He looked shocked as if the very prospect was abhorrent to him. I bade him continue, mollified by his apparent genuineness. “He wanted her to love him more than anything in the world, but he’s not practical. I’m afraid his mother doted on him too much when he was a child and filled his head with all the wrong notions. She had leanings towards… witchcraft, would you believe? And this is how much I am trusting you now, young sir, for such a thing could ruin me if it became knowledge. Would I part with such if I were going to trick or double cross you?”
“It depends on whether I would be alive by the end of this transaction.” I replied.
“I give you my word – you will not be harmed by either myself or my son. We have no wish to see harm come to you at all!”
“Very well then; go on with your tall tale.”
“I wish it were such; alas..” He replied, closing the heavy wrought door. The castle seemed very quiet, haunted even. The walls dense with despair and dampness; it seemed far colder within than it did outside. “Are you hungry, Sir?” Raymond asked, changing tack before telling me any more of the story. I hadn’t eaten for a while and one of the rules of the road is never turn down the offer of a meal so I shook my head. He led me to the kitchen and found some joints of meat.
“No kitchen staff or servants? Are you that hard up?” I asked.
“No; I have given them time to themselves. They were distraught over what was happening to my son and he needs peace and protection not people cloying over him.” This didn’t ring true but I had no reason to doubt what he said; I made a mental note and bade him continue with the narrative regarding his son. “Gerbert became infatuated with this lady and, through his mother’s contacts, sought out a wild woman from the woods around here. You know the sort I mean, I take it.” I nodded; some were indeed wild; though not all of them wise. “She made him a draught; a love potion which he succeeded in slipping into her wine one evening. Since then she has visited him at all times of the night; though God knows how. I have taken great pains to lock the castle down each night but she still manages to torment him. That is why I have come to you; a man of the world, who has seen many things on his travels. Can you help me? Can you help my son?”
I thought this over. I knew the strength of some of these potions and philtres; some were indeed intoxicating –some people said that they could even grant spirit powers to those who desperately needed them. Could such a thing have happened here by mistake? I doubted this very much; no doubt it would be little more than a love-stricken harlot that could easily be dissuaded by someone of a much more manly physique. Who knows, this might even be fun! I agreed and a princely sum of one purse of gold pieces was agreed and I was shown up to Gerbert’s room, up in the tallest tower. How anything, let alone any slip of a girl, find their way up there during the day time –let alone at night- was a testament indeed. I was given a rather uncomfortable chair to sit on, level with Gerbert’s head and told to watch over him whilst he slept.
Gerbert was already asleep and his pallor was as white as the stone that lined his room; had he not moaned at that precise moment I would have thought the deed over before it had begun. Raymond left me then and wished me luck, for his son’s sake. I nodded and started my vigil. I wasn’t concerned for I was, as the father had surmised, well-travelled and would easily be able to handle whatever life threw at me. What a fool I was!

It was to be a quiet night. Nothing happened for at least the first few hours and I admit that I fell asleep very quickly. I knew there was no truth to the story I had been told, knew not why I had been chosen for such a task but was happy, nonetheless, to take the man’s money.
Whether it was the intense cold that surrounded me or the sound of such tortured moaning that woke me up I’m not sure, but wake I did. What I saw astonished me!
Gerbert writhing in what I assumed to be the throes of sexual ecstasy until I saw the look of terror on his face –he was still asleep! I tried to shake him awake, ashamed that I had fallen asleep and hoped that I could make amends. Strangely enough my hands gripped something else instead of Gerbert’s shoulders –something far more lithe and scaly! There was something lying on top of Gerbert and it was attacking him somehow, forcing him to do things. I had no clear thoughts of what to do; it can’t have been the woman that Raymond had told me about as the door to the bedroom was still closed and there was no way anyone could have scaled the walls.
I moved around the bed quickly to try and see if there was anything interfering with him; to my horror there was. There was… something straddling Gerbert, I could see an outline against the open window and the stars outside. This form was writhing and bucking against his naked body causing him no end of pain. He cried out again and I did the only thing I could; grabbed at the.. thing and pulled it off of him. It was surprisingly light and again there was the feeling of cold scales where it should have been skin. I was horrified and backed off when it suddenly revealed itself to me.
It was female; that I could discern in the gloom but it had wings! I could feel the currents of air beat me as it hovered in front of me. There were indeed scales where there should have been flesh and it looked at me and leered. What had I done? What was I a party to?
“That was foolish, mortal.” It leered at me, the voice rasping from hell itself. “He was a willing slave to me but by interrupting us you have become my next and I have a feeling your torments will be longer lasting still. Until tomorrow.” And then it furled its wings around itself, the air around it shimmered before it disappeared. I went to see if Gerbert was ok but felt my head go light, my body went numb and I just felt myself fall in to a place that had no end.

I woke thinking that only a few minutes had passed, but upon trying to move my limbs I realised that I could not. Opening my eyes I realised that I was in the same bed that Gerbert had occupied and my arms and legs were now chained to the posts. I was naked as well, the bed clothes barely covering me. The window had been blocked up with stone but I could see Raymond sitting on the chair that I had sat at just a few hours ago and Gerbert stood by the door looking at me with pity.
“I did not tell you the whole truth, after all.” Raymond explained, his voice little more than a whisper. “How could I? What would you have done, had you known?”
“What have you done?” I shouted and thrashed violently, trying to extricate myself. “What’s going on?”
“You’re quite secure there; there’s no escaping. I’m sorry.” And he was, as strange as it might sound, he was genuinely sorry. “I told you half-truths, I’m afraid. My son did go to a wild woman when his beloved scorned him, but she did not give him a love potion; for that was not what he wanted. He wanted to be free of the lust that plagued him and sought the services of a succubus that could drain him of those energies so he could live a normal life. However he knew not what he was asking; indeed even the wild woman did not understand his request, had she done I’m sure she would have dissuaded him of such an action.”
“That was a succubus that I interfered with?” I shouted, cursing my own stupidity; of course it was! What else could it have been, and why the hell hadn’t I realised it before?
“You see, even you –a mere tramp knows of the dangers of such a spirit. So, why then didn’t my son? Why should he suffer for such ignorance?”
“So I’m to suffer instead?” I asked, trying my best to talk my way out of this.
“No doubt you have done much worse in your life; how many people have you used for your own purposes?”
“But you’re condemning me to death!”
“So that my son can live. For a father there are no depths I won’t plunder; you would feel the same, I’m sure. No one knows you are here and no one will miss you when you’re gone. The same can not be said of my Son, who will grow to great things now. Thanks to your sacrifice he will live to be pure of heart and noble of purpose. Can the same be said of you?”
“You said that I would be unharmed!” I snapped as a last desperate gamble.
“And neither my son nor myself have or will harm you. To be fair, neither will the succubus; all she offers is love after all.” He looked at me one last time before leaning over and kissing me on the forehead. “I thank you for your sacrifice. You will not be forgotten”. He then walked to the door, ushering his son to do the same.
I then hear the sound of the door being blocked up; now that his son had been rescued it was safe for Raymond’s servants to return –he did not wish them to be victim’s themselves. Oh no; far better to be some traveller that no one would ever miss to bear the burden!
So I wait, chained to this bed, and I can tell that the hour is getting close again. They say that the kiss of a succubus is to die for, but death is often the last thing she will bring. Madness and delirium first, followed by exhaustion –only when there is nothing more to take will she leave one last lullaby; a kiss before dying.

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