On the Black Wind to Baldairn Motte

Part 24.

When Lyrie tied the last of the knots holding Lord Klaye's hands and feet secure, she grabbed her knapsack and went outside to the creek. The water was frigid, but she stripped away her clothes and threw them into the rushing waters and then knelt down into the shallows to cup handfuls of water and cleanse herself. She washed the filth from her hair and face and from between her legs. The sting of the cold water cleared her mind. She leaned her head back to breathe in the crisp air, and all the anger that she had been too exhausted to feel rushed through her.

"You filthy, pig-forning blackspurs

Her head snapped back down. Methodically she wrung out her hair and tied it in a knot on her head and pulled on her old gown. It was damp and wrinkled, and hung about her shoulders loosely because of the weight she'd lost, but it was hers. The skirt dragged in the mud and with one swift motion she ripped it in half, dropping the bedraggled cloth next to her exposed calves. She opened her small case of sodden and clumped-up blue eye powder and stared at the makeup that had once been her livelihood. She was done being kicked around. No whore deserved to be treated this way. It was time to end this. A dark light shone in her eyes, as she smeared a line of blue onto each cheekbone.

She stalked back to the tent, her bare feet leaving muddy prints in the path.

The stench inside nearly gagged her, but she staunched the reflex and grabbed the dagger from the belt on Lord Klaye's discarded trousers. He was still sleeping, so she kicked him below the ribs, and he curled up with a groan. She kicked him again, this time in the stomach, and he retched at her feet before finally pushing himself partly up with his bound hands. He looked up at her with confused, bloodshot eyes.

"Rosalen? No...Lyrie? What's happened? Untie me."

She smacked him across the face, and he fell back with a gasp.

"I'm afraid I can't be your wife," she said, her voice even. "Unlike your little stable girl, I was a lady once, Lord Klaye, and you're right, I do think too highly of myself. Two years ago I was Lady Lyssandra, pride of Gaulshire, destined to marry Toli Verk's son, or perhaps even one of King Dermid's nephews. And I left all that, because to my father, my mother, to all the suitors, I was just a pretty thing. No one would let me do anything or touch anything, nor, the Passions forbid, actually bed a man. No one would let me speak, no one would even speak to me—really speak to me. All I heard were nonsense words, not words real people speak, and so I left it all to become a whore, because I could, because it was the one thing I could do that was my own choice." She brushed his sodden hair back from his face. "We're not so different in many ways, you and I, Melden Klaye."

"Then untie me. I'll still take you as my wife. Once a lady, now a whore—that's fine with me."

"No, you still don't understand. It's my choice to be a whore. I choose the men I bed, not Mistress Nedra, not you. I left the Minx's Den with you because I chose to. You tried to take that away from me, and so now...it's my choice to kill you."

"What?"

Lyrie grabbed his bound wrists and shoved her knee into his groin to keep his legs away from her. With her free hand she eased the dagger into the soft part of his neck below the larynx. She lowered her face very close to his and whispered. "My name is Lyssandra Tamarisk of Gaulshire. You were pretty at first, but now all I see is a weak and pathetic man, Melden Klaye of Blackspur. No one treats me like an animal, certainly not a worthless cur like yourself."

Lord Klaye's body jerked beneath her. Blood sputtered aroundthe blade of the dagger, as his lips moved wordlessly. She wiped the dagger onhis chest and watched as his wide eyes went blank and slowly rolled back intohis head.