The Vampire & Her Witch

It took several minutes for Samira to explain everything that had happened to bring her to this point, long enough for Noomi to finish her meal and to tend to little Saku as well. Thankfully, her baby boy was well behaved and nodded back off to sleep as soon as he’d finished nursing, though she wasn’t sure how much longer that would last.

”I don’t know what you expect me to say, Lady Jailor,” Noomi said at the end of it as she folded away the cloth that had contained her meal and handed it back through the bars to Samira. It was a measure of the disdain that her captives held for her that no one had noticed Samira’s routine trips to the dungeons at night to supplement the meager meals she was given by the guards each day, but she wasn’t about to be careless enough to keep things around that could expose the other woman’s actions.

”You seem to think that the man who murdered my husband and killed anyone he could find in my village will somehow be kind to you for bearing his child,” she said, her tail thumping the cold ground of her cell in disbelief. ”That man has no kindness in him. Only a mask he wears to conceal his cruelty from the world.”

The look of satisfaction on Owain Lothian’s face when he drove his sword through her husband’s chest before turning to her and commanding his men to take her alive was one that she would never forget for the rest of her days. He wasn’t triumphant or exultant at winning a victory against a challenging foe. He’d slaughtered a basket weaver and captured a pregnant woman and, doing so, left him... satisfied, as though he’d done a good day’s work in the forest chopping down trees.

”I, that is,” Samira started with some difficulty. ”He was kind to me at first,” she said awkwardly. ”Sometimes, when he made love to me, I felt like I was already his wife...”

”But you said he called you that other woman’s name,” Noomi said, shaking her head. ”Any man who cries out another woman’s name in the depths of pleasure should have his three treasures bitten off,” she said, snapping her sharp teeth fiercely to make her point. ”That’s a man who doesn’t see you at all, just a convenient field to plow.”

”I, I think... I think you’re right,” Samira said softly. ”Once Lady Jocelynn arrived, he stopped seeing me. Not, not immediately,” she added quickly. ”We still made love once or twice more, and he said that he’d keep me at his side along with Lady Jocelynn, but... I don’t think she likes the idea. And now, now that he has a real Lady at his side...”

”He has no need of a fake,” Noomi said with a conflicted look at the other woman. ”So run away from here. Raise up your child to remember your dream of him. But I doubt you’ll be as lucky as you think you are,” she added, choosing to pay back the sustenance she’d received with a small measure of advice. ”If he wants this other Lady to be his ’public wife,’ then you won’t enjoy being a ’little wife’ if you have the oldest child. That other lady won’t stand for it.”

”And that man,” the captive woman said, remembering the look of flames reflected in Owain’s eyes as her village burned. ”That man won’t hesitate to burn you and your little one alive if he thinks he needs to.”

”I still have some time,” Samira said, gently stroking her belly. ”Three months more before the little one is due. Just after the new year begins. Maybe, maybe he’ll visit me, and I can see what he thinks,” she said, though her voice was uncertain.

”I think you’re a fool for it,” Noomi said, shaking her head. ”But who knows. Perhaps you can keep me company from the cell next door if you try,” she said with a dark laugh. ”Then we’d really be a perfect pair.”

”I, I don’t want that,” Samira said, clutching at the bars as she felt her knees go weak at the thought of being confined to this damp, abysmal place, forced to give birth to her child on a bed of soiled straw the way Noomi had been. ”I, I’ll think of something. Something for both of us,” she added.

”You don’t have to pretend with me, Lady Jailor,” Noomi said, leaning back against the cold stone wall of her cell. ”You saving yourself from him would already be an impressive feat. You don’t have anything to save me with. You can’t fight, and you’ll either be even more pregnant or carrying a wee one of your own. It’s impossible for you to escape and trying to bring me with you...”

”But you can fight, can’t you?” Samira interrupted. ”Aren’t demons all terrifying warriors who can slay armored knights? Can’t your tail crush a man’s skull and your teeth tear through armor? If I can get the keys to your cell, I can even carry your little one while you fight and...”

”And nothing, Lady Jailor,” Noomi said with a shake of her head. ”I’m not a ’demon.’ I told you that before. That’s your word. The Eldritch are people, not nightmares from your holy books. My Esko, he, he was just a basket weaver,” she said, thinking back on how proud her husband was whenever people came to him asking for one of his baskets instead of making their own. ”I made fish traps. If I could fight off knights, do you think I’d be here like this?”

”I know I’m done for,” Noomi said, closing her eyes and shifting herself to find the most comfortable spot on the damp straw that she could. ”But maybe you really aren’t. If you ever do find a way out of here,” the captive woman said. ”Would you take little Saku with you? I don’t want that man of yours to get his hands on my little man and twist him into something as wicked and heartless as he is.”

”Don’t, don’t give up,” Samira said as her eyes grew misty. Reaching into the cloak she wore to ward off the chill of the dungeons, she retrieved the other item she’d fetched from the kitchens and stretched her arm through the bars to offer it to Noomi. ”Here, I got this for you,” she said.

When Noomi opened her eyes, she was shocked to see her Lady Jailor clutching a short, splintered piece of red cedar. It wasn’t very large, less than the length of her forearm, and there was a large knot halfway along the stick of wood, but it was a piece of wood nonetheless.

”What is this for?” Noomi said without taking her eyes off the piece of cedar. ”You think I can fight knights with this?”

”No, no, that’s not it,” Samira said, shaking her head fiercely. ”Didn’t you say that you’d have to wean Saku soon? And that you should have carved a weaning spoon for him by now? I, I know it’s just a stick of firewood from the kitchens. There’s not much here, but I thought... if you wanted, if it would help...”

”Why?” Noomi said, turning away from the stick to look directly at her Lady Jailor. ”Why would you give me this thing when you know they won’t let my claws touch wood? They’re all afraid I’ll make some kind of ’demon weapon’ if they give me even a splinter to pick my teeth, but you’re giving me this much? Aren’t you afraid of what I’ll do?”

”I’m not afraid of you, Noomi,” Samira said, placing the stick in the captive woman’s outstretched hand. ”You just want to make a spoon to feed your little one with, don’t you? A spoon that holds your feelings of love for him and your memories of his father, right? Isn’t that what you said?”

”So, make him a spoon,” Samira said as she turned to leave. ”And, and I’ll try to find a way to get you out of here. Maybe, maybe even both of us out of here,” she said as she began to walk toward the door.

In her heart, she’d already begun to believe that Owain wouldn’t let her keep her child. Not with Lady Jocelynn around. But it wasn’t until now, until she had a chance to say everything aloud to someone who saw the other side of Owain, that she realized that the fears she hadn’t wanted to face weren’t just idle fears of a day that would never come to pass.

”Samira,” Noomi said, clutching the small stick of cedar while her eyes filled with moisture. At the very least, even if she died in the days to come, her son wouldn’t become an orphan. He’d have something carved with his mother’s own claws to feel for himself just how much she loved him. It was a small stick of cedar, but in her hands, it felt like a mighty tree that could prop up the world, or at least a little corner of it. ”Thank you.”