malins
Stumbling Seeker
«What I Don't Know»
What I don't know is what’s killing me the most.
The nails clink on their chain as I raise myself up.
Made especially for me – freshly forged, they were still warm to touch when I picked them up.
Each of the spikes now slotted through a link on that chain.
Slender, sharp, almost elegant of shape, works to admire...
Then, I'd let my hand hover over them, felling the warmth radiating, oh God of Vulcan are these your gift, I picked them up and pressed them against my breast and sighed, and gathered my spirits to go out into the court where they'd prepare me, my heart wanting to leap out of my throat it seemed, palpitations of fear and desire.
The chain they wrapped round my waist and pulled it tight between my legs, pressing into me, so cold and hard and foreign between my lips. But so welcome there after the first shudder.
Pulling me forward, only one direction now, marching me through the gate into that blooming garden full of almost suffocating scents, out onto the lush grass, where well-crafted crosses of wood lay waiting for me and the others who would do their penance today.
The crosses, they weren't like I'd pictured them in my fearful dreams.
Not rough-hewn splintery beams.
Finely proportioned, warmed by the sun, finished smoothly, almost welcoming. Spill yourself upon me, mine said.
The Despot makes high art and intricate beauty of everything He touches, even if it is only a short-lived efflorescence, and so it is also for us in the throes of our punishments.
Though sentenced for unmentionable crimes, here we will be beautiful.
A while at least.
The beauty of our punishments a final splendent victory of the light of His power over the faultiness of our hearts.
Some of us will hang their heads but bloom again – most will wither.
Here in the Garden of Unearthly Despairs that lies at the heart of the Despotate of Deliria.
Where they bound me to my cross, and raised me up, where I've been aching and sweating and struggling, and it's only been two hours I think and it's only the ropes so far and they gave me a footrest too, but oh! ...please don't look at me like that. Of course you will. It's your privilege.
I know the nails will go in. That much I do know. I feel them now poking at the insides of my thighs.
The girl opposite me, on the left, the one you're looking at right now, spellbound – she's got them through the palms.
And she'll be coming down again.
Though right now she's going up too, her nose parting the curtain of her long black hair as her face comes up from where she's been hiding while hanging low, her mouth round in ecstasy because she hurts but hurts to live, it says so on her cross, atop her head; she can't see that though and nobody's supposed to tell.
It's one of the rules.
But I know and you know.
And she can guess by now.
No wonder everyone's looking at her.
In her suffering, she's aglow with blissful radiance.
You've got your back turned to me but I can see how the sight of her hits you, her throwing back her hair and pushing out her chest with those small white breasts tipped in pink and a spattering of crimson where the lash broke her skin, her laughing and sobbing and shaking her head wild and falling back again moaning.
As for me...
when are they going to come for me... to nail me... and how are they going to do it, and what more they'll do... I can't know.
However much I stretch and squirm I can't see what it says there, on the upright above my head.
And no one tells.
But she knows, and you do.
If you've been wondering about the whip marks on me, those angry welts across my belly that open up a bit and shed a few droops of blood each time I throw back my head and arch outward...
... I got them for a whisper.
Like she did.
Less than a whisper.
Mouthing the syllables silently at that girl so she'd know what her sign said.
To give her hope.
And she tried it too... to give me certainty, I think.
But I couldn't make out the words she was tring to shape.
Her sign says: 'Penance on the Cross. Nails at dawn. Whip at noon. Suffer till sunset. Release' - Each instruction on its own little plaque.
But they caught me doing that. Trying to communicate.
The first time it's the whip, the second time it's the hot iron, the third time they'd take our tongues. No talking!
But we can look.
We can try to send messages with our eyes.
And we see the looks you've got on your faces, you the spectators, the citizens, the notables, those just strolling through or those taking part in the games, the bidding, the betting.
That's how she knows by now she'll live. It's just the looks she gets, the lighter tone of discussion around her. They way they say ‘tomorrow’ and it’s one that has her in it.
And so from looks and hints we can guess, I can guess – and I know it must be quite bad what it says up there.
The fate that hangs over my head.
Maybe not as bad as her, the one on the right there, the slim one with the chestnut curls.
It says she gets smeared with pitch at noon and they've done that.
It says to set her alight at sunset.
And she knows it's bad.
But not how bad.
Would I even want her to know?
I wonder what she did.
Our crimes are unclean and aren't spelled out on the signs above our heads.
Each of us has a black tablet of stone lying face down at the foot of our upright posts, our transgressions inscribed there.
You picked mine up too, turned it round and I could see that moment of disbelief in your expression.
You looked at my face then, studying me, looking for any trace on the outside of what was hiding in my heart.
And then you looked further up, at what it says there, where I can't see,
...and I could see you approved.
Under these circumstances you approved.
And I shivered at the terrible cold running through me.
However bad it is just let me know. Please.
You're not from here. I can see that.
I guess you're a foreign merchant from across the Narrow Strait, probably you have a monopoly on some important trade, you're a guest of Belialine the Brilliant perhaps.
And so you share the privilege that otherwise only Citizens have, of participating in all the biddings.
You've seen crucifixions before I'm sure, crucified women too, nothing about your face shows any shock at that, but I've seen you raise your eyebrows at some things.
Probably you know the way it's done in the Empire but by now you've figured out how it works in the Despotate.
And I can see you want to play.
What I don't know is what’s killing me the most.
The nails clink on their chain as I raise myself up.
Made especially for me – freshly forged, they were still warm to touch when I picked them up.
Each of the spikes now slotted through a link on that chain.
Slender, sharp, almost elegant of shape, works to admire...
Then, I'd let my hand hover over them, felling the warmth radiating, oh God of Vulcan are these your gift, I picked them up and pressed them against my breast and sighed, and gathered my spirits to go out into the court where they'd prepare me, my heart wanting to leap out of my throat it seemed, palpitations of fear and desire.
The chain they wrapped round my waist and pulled it tight between my legs, pressing into me, so cold and hard and foreign between my lips. But so welcome there after the first shudder.
Pulling me forward, only one direction now, marching me through the gate into that blooming garden full of almost suffocating scents, out onto the lush grass, where well-crafted crosses of wood lay waiting for me and the others who would do their penance today.
The crosses, they weren't like I'd pictured them in my fearful dreams.
Not rough-hewn splintery beams.
Finely proportioned, warmed by the sun, finished smoothly, almost welcoming. Spill yourself upon me, mine said.
The Despot makes high art and intricate beauty of everything He touches, even if it is only a short-lived efflorescence, and so it is also for us in the throes of our punishments.
Though sentenced for unmentionable crimes, here we will be beautiful.
A while at least.
The beauty of our punishments a final splendent victory of the light of His power over the faultiness of our hearts.
Some of us will hang their heads but bloom again – most will wither.
Here in the Garden of Unearthly Despairs that lies at the heart of the Despotate of Deliria.
Where they bound me to my cross, and raised me up, where I've been aching and sweating and struggling, and it's only been two hours I think and it's only the ropes so far and they gave me a footrest too, but oh! ...please don't look at me like that. Of course you will. It's your privilege.
I know the nails will go in. That much I do know. I feel them now poking at the insides of my thighs.
The girl opposite me, on the left, the one you're looking at right now, spellbound – she's got them through the palms.
And she'll be coming down again.
Though right now she's going up too, her nose parting the curtain of her long black hair as her face comes up from where she's been hiding while hanging low, her mouth round in ecstasy because she hurts but hurts to live, it says so on her cross, atop her head; she can't see that though and nobody's supposed to tell.
It's one of the rules.
But I know and you know.
And she can guess by now.
No wonder everyone's looking at her.
In her suffering, she's aglow with blissful radiance.
You've got your back turned to me but I can see how the sight of her hits you, her throwing back her hair and pushing out her chest with those small white breasts tipped in pink and a spattering of crimson where the lash broke her skin, her laughing and sobbing and shaking her head wild and falling back again moaning.
As for me...
when are they going to come for me... to nail me... and how are they going to do it, and what more they'll do... I can't know.
However much I stretch and squirm I can't see what it says there, on the upright above my head.
And no one tells.
But she knows, and you do.
If you've been wondering about the whip marks on me, those angry welts across my belly that open up a bit and shed a few droops of blood each time I throw back my head and arch outward...
... I got them for a whisper.
Like she did.
Less than a whisper.
Mouthing the syllables silently at that girl so she'd know what her sign said.
To give her hope.
And she tried it too... to give me certainty, I think.
But I couldn't make out the words she was tring to shape.
Her sign says: 'Penance on the Cross. Nails at dawn. Whip at noon. Suffer till sunset. Release' - Each instruction on its own little plaque.
But they caught me doing that. Trying to communicate.
The first time it's the whip, the second time it's the hot iron, the third time they'd take our tongues. No talking!
But we can look.
We can try to send messages with our eyes.
And we see the looks you've got on your faces, you the spectators, the citizens, the notables, those just strolling through or those taking part in the games, the bidding, the betting.
That's how she knows by now she'll live. It's just the looks she gets, the lighter tone of discussion around her. They way they say ‘tomorrow’ and it’s one that has her in it.
And so from looks and hints we can guess, I can guess – and I know it must be quite bad what it says up there.
The fate that hangs over my head.
Maybe not as bad as her, the one on the right there, the slim one with the chestnut curls.
It says she gets smeared with pitch at noon and they've done that.
It says to set her alight at sunset.
And she knows it's bad.
But not how bad.
Would I even want her to know?
I wonder what she did.
Our crimes are unclean and aren't spelled out on the signs above our heads.
Each of us has a black tablet of stone lying face down at the foot of our upright posts, our transgressions inscribed there.
You picked mine up too, turned it round and I could see that moment of disbelief in your expression.
You looked at my face then, studying me, looking for any trace on the outside of what was hiding in my heart.
And then you looked further up, at what it says there, where I can't see,
...and I could see you approved.
Under these circumstances you approved.
And I shivered at the terrible cold running through me.
However bad it is just let me know. Please.
You're not from here. I can see that.
I guess you're a foreign merchant from across the Narrow Strait, probably you have a monopoly on some important trade, you're a guest of Belialine the Brilliant perhaps.
And so you share the privilege that otherwise only Citizens have, of participating in all the biddings.
You've seen crucifixions before I'm sure, crucified women too, nothing about your face shows any shock at that, but I've seen you raise your eyebrows at some things.
Probably you know the way it's done in the Empire but by now you've figured out how it works in the Despotate.
And I can see you want to play.
