The Sighs of the Priestess Ch. 01

"How - how do you know any of what is right or wrong from my side of it?"

"I know from the words of an old woman."

"What woman?"

She wanted to wait for his answer, but she began to cough and her eyes filled with tears from it.

He reached for the goblet and let her drink. When she was finished, she nodded a little and he took the goblet away and saw that she likely had some still in her mouth.

He waited. "Spit then, it you must."

She shook her head and swallowed.

When her eyes had stopped tearing she tried to look up and show him her hate, but she saw only sadness in his eyes. "Why do you look at me this way?" she coughed a little more and then looked at him curiously.

He wiped her cheeks with his thumbs. "Please Niši-īnī-šu, only stop for a time. I have not hurt you and I try to make this better in what small way that I can. I will not hurt you, I have no wish of it."

He slowly moved his hand toward her and touched her cheek with his palm. "If I had the way, I would see you free of this. But there is nothing that I can do. All that I can give is the same length of chain that I wear, and even this is more than you have. I try to lengthen your chains and make them as hard to see as my own. Give me some chance here. Do not do this."

The priestess shook her head slowly before him, keeping her eyes on his. "And then what, my conqueror?" The sneer was gone and she spoke quietly, still showing her proud nature.

"Am I to cower at your kind feet and service you in your bed at night like any good slave girl does, whether she wants it or not?"

He shook his head, looking down for a moment. He looked up at her face in a determined way, "No. That is beneath you as well. We eat together and we talk between us so that I can come to an idea for what I need from you, since we are together here no matter what we may wish. You may sleep in my bed, and I will sleep on the floor, since between us, I am the one who most often must sleep where I can. It comes with the life I have. You are only my slave because someone above me wills it to be. For my part, this is all far beneath one such as you. Stand up ... please."

He helped her to her feet and she stood compliant and followed his directions as he bathed her carefully, cursing the sores and the chains on her the entire time. She sat when he asked her to and she felt his rough hands as he rinsed her. He was apologetic when he washed her hair for her, and did his best. She felt those calloused hands on her everywhere as he washed and gently scrubbed the dirt and debris from her skin as gently as he could. It surprised her, how careful he was and he noticed her expression once.

"I am sorry for what was done to you, and I know that my hands are far too rough for skin such as yours, but I can see that the way that they kept you has even made you soil yourself and I can't even think of it anymore, much less see it."

She felt his hands washing the most intimate parts of her and by then she didn't feel much like being indignant over it. She found that her struggle then was not to moan when it came to her throat to do that. She did sigh once and quickly looked to see if he'd marked it, but if he did notice it, he showed her no sign that he had.

When she was clean, he helped her out of the bath and she stood in shock as he dried her very carefully before asking her to come back to the table in the other room where she stood beside him.

"I cannot feed myself like this," she said.

"I know it," he nodded, looking at her, "I am considering. I need to know if any of my words have gotten into your head. I would hate more than anything to have to feed you -- though I would, and I will not allow you to eat like an animal from a plate on the floor. Can you not find a little trust in your heart?"

She sighed, "I can. I see what you would do for me here." She hung her head.

He lifted her chin, "None of this," he growled low in his throat quietly, "Never again before me. I think that you are such a proud one for a reason, though I know only a little of the tale. But I can see that it is not only because of high birth. I see that there is more to you. But I will have none of this head-hanging between us. I think that I would rather have you spit on me again than to see this. Please wait."

He walked off and returned with a large dry towel. "I was given the keys for these insults that you wear. I know of what you have done to the jailers. I heard them talk among themselves outside my door as they brought you. I am pleased that you have ways to protect yourself, but these things must come off for I cannot look at them much longer myself."

He held up the keys, but she stopped him. "You should know, warrior, that if these chains come off, I regain more of my abilities. I say this to you only because of the kindness that you have shown to me, but I feel that I must give you fair warning here."

"Good," he said.

Her jaw dropped.

He shrugged, "So? Unless you can now grow wings and fly away, we are still tied together here. You might then be able to protect yourself even better, and I like the thought of it."

He smiled at her, "And if you can grow wings, I only ask that before you go, you strike me dead. It will save the shame of having to explain how I lost you, though I would wish you well and I now do not want to think about the work that I must do if I have no one to revile me when I sit down to eat. I will remove your chains and shackles, and you may use this to cover yourself, and then, please, may we finally eat together?"

The young priestess finally found a smile for him then and she nodded.

"Good," he said, "I have need of your help if you would give it. I need a mind more clever than my own for what I must do soon."

As the signs of her new and very low status lay in a heap on his floor, she sat and looked at him. He reached over and she flinched, but then stared at the way that he looked sad for it. "I meant nothing by it," he said apologetically.

"I must get used to all of this," she said, "no one who raised their hand near me has had anything other than a desire to strike me since I was brought here and even before that. I am sorry now how I see that you take it. It was not meant that way," she said.

"Listen then. What I wish to tell you is that if you can help me in any way, I would know of it, and I want you to know that between us here, I do not hold you as a slave to me. I would rather have a friend and an adviser. I have never had a need for a slave, and you being here now does not change that."

"It does change things," she said quietly. "I was what I was, and I am what I now am, a little more and a little less as well. I am not free. I am a slave, though you do not want it. You are a lowly soldier, you said. But that is not what I see in front of me. I see a fearsome fighter, and no one knows what he carries in his mighty heart but the friend he has tried so hard to make in one who was once a proud priestess."

She smiled and shrugged a little, "Without a temple, I am little more now than a witch, but that is of no importance one way or the other. I make my apology to you, warrior. You are not dim, or dull, stupid or brutish. I take my hard words back and I offer my help if you offer yours. I need to think of what was said this night, but I feel more behind your words than I think even you know and I will ask what you know of it later. We might use these chains that tie us and help each other. We may die in our chains here." she nodded, "Or we may carry them with us where we might go, leaving only the prison behind us."

He smiled, but looked concerned suddenly, "You did not wrap yourself in the towel," he said, "Why? I will try tomorrow to find some clothing for you, but this is all that I could do for you this night. I could give you a singlet of mine, but you would be lost in such a thing. Still, it would offer you some dignity if it did not fall right off passing over your shoulders."

She shook her head, "No. I am not cold, and I come at last to know the kind of man that you are. I feel no shame in front of you for you have already seen all of me that there is to see and you have washed and cared for me better than any of my own slaves have ever done in all of my life. For one such as you, it must have been hard with those hands much used to gripping a sword and killing to show me such care as you have. It shows how little I have thought about the lives of fighters and I am sorry now for I thought that men like you sought this. I never thought that there might be no choice in it. It may surprise you to learn that I am used to fighting myself, but with us it is out of the faith and not because one is forced."

"Also, I am so hungry now that my dignity matters little, and anyway, I am a slave myself now, though I see that you try to ease this for me as much as you are able."

She laid her small hand on the hand that would have done anything to have freed her if there was a way -- and she knew that. She looked at it and then up at him with a smile. "I see more than enough dignity now for myself in your eyes."

He squeezed her hand softly once and then let go of it and grabbed his wooden plate and heaped food on it until it could hold no more and he placed it before her, "Then please, eat."

He brought the goblet from the bath chamber, filled it with water and took the other one and filled it with wine and set them both in front of her. "We will need more of these things," he said, "but for now, use these."

She shook her head, looking at his arms and the tendons and veins there, along with his scars. Now that she took the time for it, there was much more to him than his hard fighter's face showed and she knew that he couldn't help the way that he looked.

He was a hard man -- it was plain -- but he hadn't chosen the way that he looked. It was how his life and the horrors of his warrior's existence had shaped him. He hadn't chosen this any more than she had chosen her life.

And neither of them had chosen this.

"We will share," she said softly. "You are very fearsome to look at, but I have seen some of your kind heart here. If we must be together, I see that you want no slave, but you would try to find something for me to do so that I might help you as you seem to want to help me. I understand these things at the least."