Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

LXX. The Martyr & The Matador

13
Ruth
Punta del Este, Uruguay
Montevideo, Midasʼ Court
Territory: Pinochet
July 14th, 2004
Time: 11:30 PM
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    Mutually assured destruction.

    In the quiet of the night, she readied herself for her midnight mass. The wayward flock would cry out with a noose around their necks soon enough, and as the Cenci allowed the festivities to die into a dark murmur, the painting stared down at her, burned at the edges from the destruction of the Needleʼs Eye. The bloodthirstiness of El Coliseo de los Matadores, a reminder of the pigs she slaughtered to get here. The promise of kingdom come seared the skin of the candles she lit in the name of God, and in the steadfastness of her prayers, a glint of gold flickered into the wick of her candle. Soon she would choke out the life in him, starve the beast that took his liberties with her womb and all it bore, kill all those little princes, prance around the graves of those false kings.

    "Oro," Ruth murmured, her veil hiding the murderous rage in her eyes. Oro wore the smile of the grim reaper, all teeth, all hungry for blood.

    "Long live the kings, Ruth," he simply murmured in response, bowing next to her, knees kissing the earth.

    Ruth let the bony fingers of the night claw through her hands, kissing her with deathʼs frostiness.

    "Are you here to kill me, Orito?"

    Oro clasped his hands together, the cross above them hanging like a spear, ready to rip the flesh from their bones. He cradled his hatred for God by bringing his hands to his face, and his cigarette, to burn his lips and lungs.

    "Why would I do that when we have so much to discuss, Ruth?"

    Ruth grinned a snakeʼs smile, her cat-like pupils grinning too, ready to eat him alive.

    "Good. Youʼve finally chosen the right master to serve," she mused. "I need you to send a letter to the Spider. He is a Moroccan mercenary, based in Hijaz. Before you go to the Cave, see it sent. As contingency."

    Mutually assured destruction.

    The moon was black, again, against the Uruguay sky, and wept as la llorana would. The darkness, the decay, sang together as Oro took Ruthʼs hand in his, and helped her up. In the corner, meek and feeble, her Phoenix whistled in its cage creepily, the darkness of death coating its feathers, its claws, its acidic fire and heated rain quiet embers dying to escape its prison. Ruth turned to Oro, as the evil flies crept in, camouflaging with the façade of the night.

    "In the mean-while, you told me you know the truth Virgil DeMarcus died for, back when we sparred in Chile," Ruth murmured. "Are you willing to die for it?"

    A beat.

    Oro narrowed his eyes.

    "You canʼt run from me twice, Ruth Tudor. If this is some ploy–"

  The holy cross burned his flesh, and Oro gasped, tears stinging his eyes. Wracked with tears, spasming, Oro watched with wide eyes as Ruth held him in the scorching heat, magicked by her blackness. The waves of the Needleʼs Eye came back to her, through her cross, the fiery charcoal and brimstone of her vengeance and its rage, all leeching Oro of his blood.

Oro choked, sobbing, kneeling in desperation to ease the pain. Rome would burn in front of her, she would see her mission to its completion here in Montevideo, take the demons of the New World and bind them to her ambitions. And not even Oro, in his ambition and hunger for power, would stand in her way.

  "I gave you Griselda. I gave you the Narcos. And now, tonight, I give you the Cenci. And so, I ask again: are you willing to die for it?"

    Oro collapsed, gasping.

    And then, he broke into a pool of tears.

    Ruth kneeled down next to him.

   "You saw him, I know you did," Ruth whispered, hurriedly. "In the darkness, in the devilʼs playground. Screaming to be freed. Begging for his mother and his father."

    Ruth looked up, in the darkness of the church, her fingers clutching Oroʼs holy body. The baby, consumed in smoke, with a blank face, decapitated head sewn together with blood kissing his throat. Staring at her.

    With her cold, black eyes.

   "I know you saw him because I see him, Oro," Ruth told him, not breaking eye contact. The baby spoke to her with a violinʼs teeth, in broken shards that sliced her skin, and she knew.

    We donʼt have much time.

    "How often?" he whispered, the soul gone from his voice.

  "Always. Are you willing to die for it?"

    After fleeing the United States to return to Latin America, the blood of her blood, in an effort for revenge, Ruth remembered how she found it: through Pinochet. Now, decades later, the populace bowed to her every whim, the masters were blanched with bloodless fear, the Golden Company was moored to her dominion, and yet, the past whispered in her ear. Teased and taunted her so; a fickle demon. She had not won this battle; she had not lost. They bent their knees, and watched her breathe fire into the Sword of Simón Bolivar, and now, she would set the Latin people free once more at the price of her soul. A Pandoraʼs box. Those little sins.

    Was this what she wanted?

    Was this what she desired?

    Would she part the seas with her gift, slay dragons, dream up new lands? New opportunities – bursting at the seams? The fabled, famed Mother of Murder?

    The past always came back, however.

    The ruse, the guise, the deceitful little wile. The illusion, a comforting world of deceiving, false realities, concealed truths.

    The past would not bring back the ones she loved, The past would not avenge the wrongs that had been done, the past would only take. Take and take and take until there was nothing left. Just a corpse, exhausted of all its poetry and its writings. History was fiction, literature was currency, the pure race was the master race...

    "Sí, mi doña."

    ...and Ruth would go for the jugular.

    Para ustedes, mis hijos.

    "Good," Ruth told him. "Let it begin."