Conan lay in the dark, wishing for some light, a spire of flickering torch, anything to ease the spinning oblivion that wrapped itself around his body, seeking to strangle the very life from him. It was a strange thing, darkness; almost as if the absence of light was something tangible, something the young minstrel could touch as he lay there, panting on his sparse cot, wishing for the light to penetrate the awful fate that seemed to loom over him. There, in Northumbrio’s private chambers, Conan had come up against power as he had never before felt in his life. The pain shot through his fingers by the eerie magical sphere had been nothing compared to the stinking sin, the unmistakable Evil that had lurked in the shadows watching him with glinting fiery eyes, that sought to prey upon his still questioning soul. Surely, such a weak man as he could not even think of depriving his master, who was supreme and wonderful, the sacred duties bestowed upon him by his own twisted nature; Conan’s life was his master’s.
Twisted nature? Conan gave a sudden jolt and the searing pain sliced through his skull like a long-knife. The nature of justice, then. The pain went away slowly, like a cat backing down from an unworthy opponent. For indeed, the young minstrel was assuredly not worthy of such devotion and care as Northumbrio had given him; he deserved to be beaten and thrown into a ditch for all his rebellious thoughts. Praise his master’s goodness that he kept him alive! Yes, indeed, what Conan felt every time he thought a cross-word against his master must be Northumbrio’s just goodness shining out through the darkness in a turmoil of fiery pain. What a unique way to train a disobedient servant! Conan shuddered with awe as he felt the pain slip finally away altogether. Yes. He was disobedient. He deserved much less than Northumbrio was seeing fit to give him. Conan traced a water stain on his cot and looked at the stone ceiling.
“I should have been killed on sight and lain out for the birds of carnage to feast upon my unworthy entrails.” The morbid thought somehow pleased him and he hummed to himself. “The master of all of us here should not be so kind to me. I deserve so much less than he sees fit to bestow upon my miserable soul.” Conan suddenly wondered whether he secretly hated his master, deep within the hidden parts of his soul whom no man, be he human or god, could go near. Perhaps the real reason of his fear at being unworthy or disobedient stemmed from an actual hatred that was building itself up in the form of meek servitude. Conan’s eyes glittered and he flopped over to lie upon his stomach across the foul-smelling cot. Why was he romancing the thought of being a rebel in the form of a good slave? Surely his mind must be smeared with Northumbrio’s influence too deeply to think of anything in a straight and rational manner.
Yet…yet what if there was a life beyond what Northumbrio was giving to him?
The thought so startled Conan in its sense and wild, rebellious nature that he sat up poker stiff and his feverishly bright eyes darted about the room, searching the roiling darkness for anything that might have heard the thought screamed aloud in his brain. No, indeed there was no one, but his master, who knew all things perhaps even before they had been done or thought or said, understood the depth of what Conan had just thought. A pain unlike any other crashed into Conan’s senses and their ferocious brutality frightened him. The pain, like long sharp teeth within the jaws of a monster, tore into his soul and contorted his body so that the minstrel writhed upon his cot screaming in agony.
“It was not me that thought the terrible thing, oh great and might master, who is wise beyond all things and who knows that I am his faithful servant!” Conan shouted. His voice sounded hoarse and raw in his own ears. The pain intensified. “Do you not believe me?” Conan cried out. Looking through a black shield of pain, Conan saw the brand of a flame on his fingertip, where he had touched the sphere of his own will and thus been made an eternal servant of the exiled duke from the north. “This is my mark, my promise to you, never to be faithful to another!” Conan threw his finger into the air as if it would somehow make the terrible pain go away. It was weakening him so that he fell to the ground and hardly noticed when a sharp flagstone cut open his forehead. “I am sorry, master, I will not think such horrible things again!” Conan was growing weary of the incessant throbbing, like a dying ember, implanted within his heart, burning out the defiant thinking and replacing it with pain-wrought awe. “Master…” Conan groaned and dragged himself over the slippery stones to his black cloak lying in a crumpled heap. Searching the heavy black folds desperately, Conan withdrew a wickedly pointed dagger and tore his jerkin from his throat. The pain paused in its throbbing, as if considering the minstrel’s helpless form lying upon the ground with a cold steel dagger pressed up against his throat.
“See, my wonderful, beautiful master,” Conan cried out, “I am willing to kill myself for your sake! I am ready to take my life for you! Please, I beg of you, let this pain go away.” Even in his own ears, Conan’s voice sounded like a pathetic child begging for a cookie. What can he wish me to do? He frantically ran the dagger across his throat, making a tiny ribbon of blood seep down into his shirt. “Do not desert me, master…” he rasped. The pain finally slunk back to Northumbrio’s hands and Conan collapsed face first upon the mossy flagstones. “I thank you, I thank you, I thank you!” he repeated over and over and over again to the spinning darkness.

“You used to play the stringed pot when you was a knee-high, did you not?” drawled an accented stable hand. The girl, her gray hair hanging into her eyes like a mask hiding her tormented spirit, continued to peel the rotten potatoes and said nothing. A rough hand grasped at her collar and she was yanked out of her chair and brought face to face with the stupid stable hand. His eyes watered from the onion he was chomping, loudly as a horse, and he shouted “I was askin’ you a question, girl!” The young girl let the potato drop from her bandaged fingers and she refused to look the man in the face. The stable hand yelled in a high-pitched voice and slapped her across the silent mouth. The other cooks and maidservants in the kitchen giggled and went on with their work, looking at the scene through delighted eyes. Ever since the brawl in the mess house between the garlic-eating guard and the new minstrel, who had caused much uproar within Northumbrio’s castle, they had been itching for another good fight. But then again, what was a miserable servant girl up against a burly stable hand? No, they would not get their share of fun from this outburst, especially since the strange little girl did not seem to feel the harsh slaps across her pale cheeks.
“Stupid worthless beggar,” grunted the stable hand, shoving the girl back into her seat to look after the potatoes, “one cannot git a thing from ‘em anymore. Ignorant scum!” He grabbed up another onion, pinched the cook rudely, who squawked with vapid laughter, and strode from the kitchen without another look at the silent little slave girl.
She calmly picked up her potato and resumed her peeling. A wench whom Northumbrio had plucked from Warwick gutters to serve his men their meat came flouncing into the kitchen and draped her slender body over a chair with an exaggerated sigh.
“Where does the master GO all afternoon?” she wondered loudly, when no one paid any attention to her doleful sigh. “The minstrel certainly does not play for him all this time.” The cook turned around and leaned in closer as the wench lowered her voice to a grating hiss. “Word has it that the lad has rebel fire in him. The master’s been all stirred up over his soul or something like ever since he was captured and brought here by Northumbrio himself!” She spoke the name delicately, like something that would break if she handled it too roughly. “I heard the poor man screaming in his room as I passed by!”
The little girl’s head shot up and the bowl of peeled potatoes tipped over as she jumped up and rolled across the kitchen floor. The cook gave a shrieking curse and boxed her on the ear. The blow sent the girl whirling into the stove and she nearly burned her patched dress.
“Worthless good-for-nothing!” the cook screamed. “Now all them taters will be needin’ a good scrubbin’!” The girl climbed painfully to her feet and began picking up the potatoes again. They were rotten anyway, why cause such a fuss over them? The girl guessed it was merely because the cook wanted someone to hit. Her beefy fist had made quite a stinging red mark on her ear and she resisted the temptation to rub it and fondle the hurt as she tipped the potatoes into the bowl and filled it with scummy water from the rain barrel outside. It was a wonder no one grew sick over the lack of nutrition, but a fervent desperation to live and to please their master, the mighty Northumbrio who bore a burning hatred against the King Wenceslas the Second, who’d had him exiled from his lands many a year ago, kept the people alive despite all odds. Yet life within Northumbrio’s castle was miserable, almost like living death. Many people who lived but a few weeks under the master took their own lives and many mass-graves had been dug and quickly filled outside of the tall stone walls. The girl remembered watching the pallid bodies being thrown on top of one another; she recalled the death-stench that had arisen over the land and which had never left. She could tilt her head into the wind and smell it now, an overpowering putridity that followed the master wherever he went. It was one of the scents Evil had claimed, and daily Northumbrio’s people were made to endure it until gradually they noticed it no more.
The little girl shuddered, her thin shouldering quaking under her meager patchwork dress, and drained the potatoes. The cook and the wench were deep in conversation, over men, no doubt, so she took up a flagon of dark purple grape drink intended for someone of higher status and slipped out of the kitchen, eager to breathe of air untainted by unwashed bodies and musty rotten vegetables.
She fought the urge to skip as the cold corridor air enveloped her and a sharp, almost pleasant winter smell met her nose on the heels of Northumbrio’s ever-present death-stench. She cocked her head back, holding the flagon of rich drink close to her chest, and breathed deeply of the refreshing scent. Life had good things in it, if one was able to look past the trials and the pain and the dirty stench and find it.
In the kitchen, the wench asked the cook, “What is wrong with the girl?” The cook nestled closer into her chair, eager to share gossip.
“She saw her parents carted away amongst the dead during the Plague-Time, never been the same again. Just look into her eyes, they will haunt you forever! Some say she became a wanderin’ lute-player, makin’ up songs that reflected the joy she had known with her kin before they were taken by the dreadful malady.” The wench clucked with sympathy and suddenly wished she could do something for the lass. The cook waved the sudden empathy away and cackled, “She roved into the master’s grasp, played a song that nearly killed him with the joy in it, and he had her hands burnt so she could never play again. A shame, I suppose, she could have grown up to play songs fitted well for the master.” Somehow, deep down, she doubted the girl could ever have played such songs as Northumbrio wanted. She had too much spirit when she came, and still there were sparks that glinted every now and then within the girl’s eyes.
The cook turned around to see if their conversation had been noticed and gave a sudden yell of rage. The wench toppled out of her chair and looked around, ready to see a dozen armed enemies.
“Where is the drink!” shouted the cook. The flagon was gone, the girl was gone. She gave a growl of fury and stormed from the kitchen, rolling up her sleeves.