Expiation

Since the child was born we have known nothing but suffering and torment. He took my wife, Isabelle, with his first breath. Outside these walls, our kingdom’s crops do not yield sustenance and our wells run dry. Every day our enemies, both large and small, encroach further on our land. Now, with his unyielding influence over his five years of life, he has brought a plague to my land and to my daughter, my last beacon.

My son must die.

He sleeps in a locked room at the end of the hall. I sealed it and placed a guard on watch after my daughter fell ill one month ago. No one can know it was my family that brought this upon our people.

He sleeps in a locked room at the end of the hall. I sealed it and placed a guard on watch after my daughter fell ill one month ago. No one can know it was my family that brought this upon our people.

I raise myself from my bed where my beautiful Isabelle once lay, her auburn hair draped over my chest, her head spotted with beads of sweat from our love. Now I lay alone. I do not wish for any other companions, for none can replace her.

The chalice clatters to the floor as I rise, spilling my last gulp of wine. My unsteady legs know they will find their balance when the time comes. I claw my way past the long velvet drapes, the ones she so adored. I pause, my eyes cast out beyond the keep to the furious waters beyond. A storm is coming. Deep on the horizon, the blackened clouds cast down into the waters below, illuminating them for a moment by a shattering flash of blue light.

I drape myself in my bed robe, not concerned to close it, for there is no dignity left to save. The door, aged and iron-bound, exhales in apathy as I heave it open.

The stones sting the soles of my feet with the ice of winter. The window shutters emit a death rattle, wishing to give way to the growing winds beyond them. Two guttering sconces struggle to fight back the darkness with their flame. The shape of the door at the far end of the corridor somehow sears my retinas. Within lies my torment, my failing.

The walls offer me support in my last walk. With each step my muscles awaken, the chill of the dead air bracing them, reminding them of what they’ve done to defend all they love, telling them they must do so again.

The guard I posted remains steadfast; his gaze passes through me as it is trained to. Yet I sense his eyes betray him. How could they not? I reach my daughter’s room. Inside I know she is suffering, that she may not survive the winter, yet I have already said farewell. Perhaps what I do next will bring her respite and recovery, so that she may lead. I place my forehead softly against her door for a moment, but I must not delay. Now is the time.

The guard flinches as he anticipates my order. I’m standing so close that his muted breaths caress my ear.

“Go,” I tell him. But before he does, my hand finds itself firmly on the shaft of his pike. No words are spoken, but he releases his grasp and leaves the corridor, calm, but with an unspoken haste in his steps.

The bedroom is dark and cool. The window here looks out onto the inner courtyard. For now, the walls shield the room from the imposing eye of the oncoming storm. Faint ripples of light from elsewhere crawl in, highlighting the boy’s body under his white sheets.

My mind extinguishes all influence of my night’s imbibing. Within three silent steps, I stand over him. I remove his sheets, revealing the pale-skinned boy below them. For a moment I cannot see. Deep within, I feel an unseen hand grasping my spine and pulling me out of the room, telling me to leave the boy sleeping. But I quench them with a single breath. I lift the pike; the tip pointed down above the boy’s ribcage. My palms burn, the veins close to rupturing under my unyielding grip.

The tip of the pike rests above his chest, hovering in anticipation over the space between the ribs. A blast of thunder shakes the room and the boy’s eyes open and lock onto mine. He looks shocked for a moment and then a subtle smile creeps across his face.

Could I be wrong?

No.

I plunge the pike down into his chest. There is little resistance, but the blade scrapes on the bones of his ribcage, letting out the sound of grinding stones and sending tremors through my forearms. He gasps. I hold my breath. Now his eyes are so wide that it looks like they may escape their sockets. Down below my hands, the blade finds its way deep. Blood flees from its prison inside his body and flows freely. It is the same color as his mother’s favorite berries. There is a breath and a word that escapes his lips.

“Fath—”

I wrench the pike up, accompanied by a resistant slurp. I thrust it down again without restraint. Bones crunch and snap. He is so frail and weak, like cooked chicken bones. I toss the pike to the ground after the third thrust. It clatters against the cold stone floor, spattering the room with the crimson paint that now adorns it.

My legs quiver with adrenaline. Jolts and spasms running through me.

It had to be done. We had to be free.

Below me, what was once my son is now drained and white. Three ragged roles lay where his chest once was. The chest and body I’d held as a baby, now torn asunder and wrenched open. Within the openings lay flooded lungs, and a heart severed from its bindings, pumping out its precious cargo relentlessly. The pool is so deep that it creeps up over my toes. His eyes, still open, but now bereft of life, stare up at me. He didn't take his eyes off me for one moment.

What if I was wrong?

No. I couldn’t have been.

I hear footsteps coming up the corridor. My breath quickens as I realize that the guard has betrayed my trust, my unspoken orders. What has he done? I step toward the window, looking out into the black night, the blood that speckles my face washing away with the now falling rain.

I think of Isabelle. I think of what I have done.

The high priest, Nathaniel, enters with three guards. There is a muted silence in recognition of the scene. Nathaniel’s wine-soaked breath passes by my ear.

“You are not feeling yourself, my lord. Please, come with us.” His words slither out of his mouth as the guards place their hand on me.

They are not comforting but commanding. I’m hurried out the room and down endless corridors. I subsume my expectations of being returned to my bedroom. Instead, we walk toward the keep and the dungeon that lies beneath it.

I am reminded of how Nathaniel has always been there for me. For all my life. He was there when Isabelle was lost. It was he who first raised concerns about the boy. He who had the visions and counselled me on how to deal with the horrors visited upon the family by our own blood. It was he who said something may need to be done one day. It was he who told me he would take care of everything if I were gone.

I realize my error as Nathaniel points the guards to where they should place me and begins sharing instructions. They remove my robe and bind me. I know what comes next.

There is no trial here. I am the crazed King. Lord of a cursed and dying land finally turned mad and murdered his only heir. An heir presumed the cause of the blight besieging us, but I was fooled. For my curse lay at my right hand, and that hand is now holding the blade. The same blade working its way around my stomach in one smooth motion, quickening my expiation.

I beg Nathaniel to stop. Not for my life, but for my daughter’s. All I can think of is what will happen to her and what Nathaniel may do once I’m gone.

Warm sensations, tingling, and dampness run down my inner thigh as if I have soiled myself, but it is blood, just blood, always blood. Searching fingers investigate the space between my skin and muscle. All the nerves in my body fire, screaming at me to escape, to run, but the straps and guards hold me still. They tilt me back so the blood inside and outside of me runs to my head, finding its way inside my nostrils, mixing there with the cruor of my son.

They work diligently with the knife, but it is a long task. A task I’ve witnessed on more than one occasion. Nathaniel was always by my side, even when his traitorous brother received the blade.

My vision dissolves. When it returns, I see what was once the skin of my abdomen, penis, and left leg, dangling off the table. What remains on the table is raw, glistening, and spasming. Nathaniel kneels by my head as the fingers crawl up and inside my jaw and the back of my skull.

I hear only this:

“Praise be, that we are now purged of this curse upon us.”

The hands rip up and I cannot breathe.

All goes dark.

Then light.

Then nothing.