48 Hour Short Story Contest

"One Movement"

         "You'll be killed doing this."

         Syl didn't respond. Crouched over his worktable, he pried up the sole of the shoe, peeling it from the bright red leather. There would be just enough space between to hide the blade.

         Marcus had been looming behind him for nearly half an hour, watching him prepare for the night, complaining. Most of the walking space in Syl's tiny room was taken up by Marcus' broad shoulders.

         "You're in my light again," Syl said.

         "Syl, please."

         "Marcus, I have to. You know I have to." Carefully, Syl pulled the knife from the back of the drawer, unfolding it from its scrap of cloth. The metal was smudged with fingerprints and water spots, but the edge was still keen.
         Marcus growled, and from the shadow on the wall, Syl could tell he was crossing his arms. He only did that when he was serious.

         “No, you don't. Every time you go up there, Syl, you’re playing with fire. You can't fool Lord Casanon forever.” Marcus moved a few steps closer, his footsteps heavy on the packed earth floor. Syl glanced up.

         “Don’t you think I know that?” He didn’t have time for this again tonight, not when his chance might be at hand.

Turning the knife slowly, he ran his fingers down the length of it. The handle was too bulky to fit, but all he needed was the blade. He picked up the hammer.

         “Listen to me, damn it!” The idiot was yelling now, loud enough to carry down the corridor. “This is madness! You know what he‘ll do to you if you‘re caught? You‘ll hang from the main gate, Syl!”

         Syl surged to his feet and whirled around, pushing Marcus back with a steady glare. “Shut up,” he hissed. “I know that. I knew what I was risking from the start, didn't I? He's a tyrant, Marcus, and someone has to do something.”
“It doesn't have to be you.” Marcus met his eyes with grim determination.

         “Doesn't it?” Syl took a step forward, pressing back a sharp pulse of fury. “I’ve worked too hard to get here, and you were part of that. I'd have never gotten past the main gate without you, let alone right under his nose, and you can't go to pieces on me now. You know what this has cost me.”

         “She’s dead, Syl.” Marcus’ voice was quieter, but it held an unfamiliar edge. "None of this will bring your sister back." Something like pity floated in his eyes, a soft darkness that called up memories of that night, of the winter rain and the makeshift grave, of the colorless earth.

         What could Marcus understand? He’d never known her, never heard her earthy chuckle. He didn’t sail boats of leaves with her on the stream in the valley, or throw flowers on her wedding night.

         He never watched the light fade from her eyes.

         Syl blinked it away and clutched the hammer tighter, counting breaths until the moment passed. Now wasn’t the time to mourn.

         “This isn't about her.”

         "Oh?" Marcus twisted his mouth into a sneer and shook his head. "No, of course not. It's about freedom and justice, right? The good of the land?"

         "Stop it, Marcus."

         "Of course it has nothing to do with Cara, does it, Syl? This whole righteous vendetta of yours is just a gift to our fine citizens, a civil obligation."

         "I said stop it! Yes, Marcus, alright - I started this because of her. But you think Cara is the only one? How many innocent girls have come to this fortress looking for work and ended up in a ditch somewhere? How many chambermaids and serf's daughters have to die before someone does something?"

         "Syl, listen-" Marcus started, but Syl raised the hammer and stepped forward.

         “No, Marcus, you listen! Cara died resisting him, died because she wouldn't give the sick bastard what he wanted, and you think I'm just going to walk away? You were with me in this, Marcus, but if you've lost your nerve then you can just go!”

         His voice rang sharp in the tiny room, and Marcus stared at the hammer in surprise. Slowly, he backed to the door.

         “Syl,” he said, almost whispering. “Look what this has done to you. Listen to yourself."

         Syl shook his head and closed the door. He leaned against it and listened until Marcus’ heavy footsteps faded down the corridor, leaving him alone.

         He had more work to do.

*

         The great hall was packed with rowdy men and laughing women, crushed into each other all along the walls. The smell of roasted meat, wood smoke, and wine swirled around their bodies, and Syl followed it on twirling feet.

         His bells rang brightly with every step, drawing eyes and smiles as he slipped between the long tables and up to the front. Just before the dais he sprang forward, tumbling into a handstand and splitting a grin at the lord’s table.
A few of them looked and laughed, but Syl was careful to focus elsewhere. He crossed his eyes and walked hand-over-hand along the table front, rolling up and bowing low enough to scrape his bells on the stone floor.

         “Good eve, my lord,” Syl cried, gesturing with a wide sweep of his arms. He was greeted with wry glances and a few raised eyebrows.

         “Don’t mind the fool,” Lord Casanon grumbled to the heavy-bearded man beside him. “The children fancy him.”
His neighbor, a visiting baron Syl hadn't caught the name for, tore a mouthful of gravy-soaked bread from the chunk in his hand. He glanced dismissively at Syl and nodded, then returned his eyes to the slender girl on his other side.

         Falie endured his stare as she endured everything, with silence and lowered eyes. As Casanon's eldest daughter, they expected that of her. Tonight she was dressed in blue and white, her dark hair bound up to show the curve of her neck.

         “She’s quite the lass, my Lord, I’ve got to say.” The bearded man fingered his goblet and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "You haven't made a match for her?"

         The man's eyes lingered on her.

         "Not yet," Casanon said. "But soon."

         "I wouldn't wait much longer my lord, eh? Best picked young, these pretty things." The baron chuckled low in his throat and turned back to Casanon.

         Syl forced himself out of his stillness with a loud giggle, prancing along the edge of the dais. He winked and pulled faces at the ladies gathered below, producing his juggling balls from the pockets of his patchwork jacket.

         He tossed them with a flick of his wrists, pulling them from the air in flashes of gold, green, and red. He tried to let his mind go blank, focusing on his breath and the rhythm of the tumbling spheres, but Lord Casanon’s harsh laughter punched through his concentration.

         It was a rough sound, almost a cough, and even with his eyes closed, Syl could see Casanon’s tanned and pitted face, sneering, contorted into familiar, hard lines. He saw that face even in his sleep now, mingled with Cara’s whimpers and the sickly smell of death. It leered from the dark behind his eyes.

         Then another feeling pushed in, and Syl snapped back to the moment. Falie was watching him. Sitting in the shadow of Casanon’s guest, the girl stared at him with bottomless eyes. Dark like her father’s, they lingered on his face, ignoring the juggling.

         Did she know?

         Syl caught the breath that almost betrayed him, forced himself to offer her a stupid smile, but she only looked away. With her hands clasped on the table before her, she stared into her wine cup.

         It was his imagination, that she saw something under the silly clothes and thick-caked paint. What could she see? No one looked past the smile he smeared on every night, and surely her thoughts were on herself. She still seemed far too young to marry, far too fragile to be placed in the hands of any of these brutal men.

         As Syl watched, the bearded baron threw a meaty arm around her chair and laughed, leaning down to whisper in her ear. The girl flushed pink and closed her eyes. Her father drew the man away again, distracting him with a warrior's camaraderie. They guzzled wine and threw back their heads, ignoring the girl’s slight tremble.

         She was crying. Syl caught the balls unthinking, tossed them automatically, watching her through his mask of white paint. Her narrow shoulders shook as if the wind pulled at her, and her wet cheeks glistened in the firelight. If anyone noticed, no one moved to her. He knew he couldn’t wait any more, not one more night of watching this.

         Quick between tosses, Syl dipped his hand in one pocket and pulled out a silver ball, the one he’d been carrying all this time, spinning it into his pattern with an expert flick. It flashed among the others, drawing exclamations from the crowd, until he let it slip from the tips of his fingers and land spinning on the table into Falie’s hands.

         She jerked her head up, but he was smiling at the wall, eyes fixed on the tapestry above her father’s head. He watched her from the edge of his vision as she stared at the silver ball, turning it over in her hands until she discovered the seam.

         She glanced at him again, but he pretended not to see. While the men drank and boasted, she carefully cracked it open. He turned away, grinned at the crowd, dropped the balls in his pockets and cartwheeled down the stairs. He didn’t need to watch her open it, better if he left before she did.

         This was the night, the last night - he was sure of it now. He slipped and danced through the rough crowd of the hall, making his way to the small eastern door. She’d have opened the ball now, let the contents spill into her hand, held it up to the light. She wouldn’t recognize the little silver grasshopper on its delicate chain, wouldn’t know what it meant.

         But she’d have it. She’d keep it and no matter what happened next, whatever outcome the night would have, that was a small comfort he could hold on to.

*

         The night clouds draped heavy over the fortress, wrapping the tower in a thick summer fog. Syl perched on the stairs, taking slow, shallow breaths as he listened.

         The night watch had already walked through; it would be another hour before any guards returned. By now, he knew the fortress as he knew the rhythms of his own body, the movement of every servant and soldier like a pulse of his heart. No one was awake.

         In the chamber above, Lord Casanon was sleeping soundly by now, enclosed by curtains and silk sheets, but Syl would need to move like the wind. Already he had torn the bells from his hat and coat, leaving them hidden in the courtyard below. After that it was a simple thing to slip through the kitchen and up the back stair, where even if he was remarked he’d be ignored.

         After so many months, no one thought much of his night wanderings. He’d been an idiot for them, a simple clown, the one who danced for them and played for them, the one who gave apples to the children and flowers to the maids. They’d watched him spill drinks and misremember names, shared their bread with him. How could they suspect their beloved fool?

         Syl eased the knife blade from the sole of his shoe, careful to avoid the jagged edges left by the hammer’s work. A scarf from his pocket would do to wrap it - he needed only a few inches exposed. That done, he rose and felt his way up the stairs.

         The door that led into Casanon's family chambers was locked, of course, but weeks ago he’d managed to take a cast of the key with a handful of clay. Syl’s wooden copy was inexact, but nevertheless it turned. He opened the door.
A sluggish summer wind came in with him, dragging on the heavy curtains around the bed. Syl closed the door without a sound. All was quiet here; Casanon was too paranoid to sleep with servants by his bed, and the doorways to the children's rooms were dark.

         Gripping the knife blade, he moved across the carpet and stood beside the bed, listening to the rise and fall of his enemy’s chest. Sweat dampened the back of Syl’s neck, slicked his palms, and trickled cold under the stifling coat. With his left hand, he brushed the curtains back.

         There was that face, the same face, the nightmare face, now slackened and calm with sleep. Casanon’s breathing was measured and slow, his heavy lids unmoving, his lips parted. He did not stir.

         Syl stroked the blade with his fingers and leaned in close, feeling his chest constrict around his lungs. This was the man who killed Cara. These were the hands that held her, that struck her, that bruised her precious face. She smelled this smell, the thick smell of his body, felt this flesh pressed against her own.

         By the time Syl found her, she hadn’t known anything else. Eyes already dull with pain, she was curled by the road in the half-melted snow, the blood wrapped dry and stiff around her. He remembered the stutter of her breaths and the unwelcome grey that seeped through her. Had she heard his promise? Was she watching him now?

         He swallowed hesitation, then pressed the blade down.

         The eyes opened. Syl froze, caught between breaths, the edge pressed against Casanon’s throat. The pulse throbbed against the blade and Syl felt warm breath on his face.

         Casanon’s eyes were black in the shrouded room, hard with the sickly surprise of the moment. Recognition came slowly.

         “The fool?” he whispered.

         Syl nodded, not trusting his voice. A single movement would end it, would finish everything he came here to do, but his fingers were shaking and the silence seemed too loud.

         "Why?" Casanon's face was rigid.

         The question filled the room, and Syl had the urge to scream, laugh, cry. It seemed unthinkable that he not know, that somehow he not understand. For Cara, he wanted to yell, for all the others like her, for their mothers and fathers and brothers.

         Words weren't enough, but he already wore it all in his face, Syl knew, everything he couldn't say. He shook his head and watched as Casanon filled with the knowledge of death, of its nearness. One movement would be enough.

         But then something seemed to move in the room, a sigh of warm air, and Syl glanced up. Wrapped in shadows by the balcony, the figure of a girl stepped forward, a familiar glint of silver at her throat. Her eyes met his, and for one wild instant it was Cara, come to stand witness, come to see it done.

         But in the pale window light, her hair was too long and dark, her face too slender, her eyes too drenched in fear. Falie. She was wearing the grasshopper, Cara's silver grasshopper, over her heart.

         She was watching him.

         "Falie," Syl heard himself whisper.

         She nodded, her soft eyes wide with shock. She must have been standing on the balcony, looking at the stars, and come back in with the thought to sleep. He should have thought to look there, to check, but now it was too late and she saw everything.

         Under his hand, Casanon held still, and Syl was aware of his warmth, of his trembling. Just one movement, and he could end everything. He could set things right. But Falie was watching him, her shaking fingers coming up to brush the token at her throat.

         Just one movement, and her father would die. The bed would flood with his life, and Falie would hold him while he breathed his last. She would cradle the tyrant's body and brush his hair from his eyes. She would remember Syl this way, and his face would haunt her dreams.

         He would be the monster then, the murderer, and the guards would swarm to her screams. There was no avoiding it after all, no chance of escape. When they came, they'd bear him down and hang him as a traitor, and Falie would be snapped up by the bearded baron or someone just like him.

         But he came here for this. This was everything.

         He looked into her eyes.

         "I'm sorry," he said, and pushed down.

*

         Casanon's death came swiftly, settling over him like the still heat of the summer air. Everything was silent.

         Syl waited for her running footsteps, her screams, but the moment slid on and on. He dared not look up.
When she moved, it was dream-slow, stepping through the room like a rustling ghost. He felt her come to his side, to stand looking down on the bed. He thought he heard her crying.

         Then her fingers brushed his wrist, took hold of it, and he tensed. Delicately, she slid the blade from his hand. The urge to run fluttered somewhere in his mind, but it seemed dim and far away. Her skin on his was cool as silk.

         She pressed the grasshopper into his palm.

         When he looked up, she wouldn't meet his eyes. Her face said it clearly: Go. He wanted to explain everything, take her hand and feel her coolness against him, but everything he could say seemed to wither on his lips.

         She didn't know him. She never could.

         Slowly, he stood. Falie didn't move as he walked to the chamber door, didn't even look up. He stood there for a long moment, then slipped out into the night.

Word Count: 2981

One Movement  (18+) Syl has waited in disguise to avenge his sister's death. The time has come. #1556625 by IndigoChain