Chapter 5 - within the witch’s sanguine hold

The witch named Hekse greeted them with a warm smile that did not reach her sunken blue eyes. She was seated in a candlelit parlor with bookcases, tables, and cushioned seats meant for entertaining guests, or perhaps a sitting room where patrons of the candy store below could relax and eat and read. Her chair was plush and velvety, and in front of her was a wide, low table filled with treats that had been plundered from the floor below. In her lap, the witch held a crystal ball, and Lev despaired to see the bottom floor of the building rendered in bright detail in its glassy curves.

On a side table beside her pillowy throne–she sat in it with an imperiousness to rival that of any ruler Lev had ever seen–were a few dozen or so small phials that might have once contained sprinkles or spices or other ingredients used by the confectioner to accent his wares, but which now only contained a few drops of blood each. One such phial stood open, and the witch was holding a finger over it, letting a fat bead of blood drip into the phial before corking it and setting it aside. The cuts on Lev’s nape itched and ached at the sight of the crimson liquid.

“Now,” Hekse said in a clear voice. “Let’s make sure that doesn’t wear off before we can have a polite conversation, hm? Let’s start with the girl.”

Lev and the princess–whose arm had begun bruising in the knight’s firm grip–watched the merchant limp toward the side table, eyes downcast, and pick up a phial in each hand. He winced as the hand that Lev had battered touched the glass, and the sharp glare that followed from the witch drained so much color from his face that he might have blended into the plaster-white walls. He proceeded uncorking one of the phials with all the sound of a ghost.

Lev’s body yanked the princess in front of it and pulled her arms behind her. It then drove a knee into the back of her thighs, and her legs buckled, dropping her into a kneel. The merchant approached with the phials.

The princess hocked spit at the witch, and though it landed short, the disdain in Hekse’s eyes was evident. The man stopped, glancing between the two women nervously. “If you want my body that badly, why don’t you come and take it yourself? Or do you prefer to watch when people better-looking than you go at it?”

Hekse’s smile turned to a sneer. “I have no interest in your body, pig. Just the energy you bear.”

“There’s plenty of energy right there in front of you. I think you’re just shy.” Lev found it possible to glance down slightly, and saw the princess’s own defiant smirk.

“This?” Hekse gestured at the spread in front of her with incredulity. “Slop. Slop which I’m sure you’ll enjoy gorging yourself on, like the debased little sow you are.” The confectioner shuffled nervously, perhaps afraid to show any sign that he had been insulted by the disparagement of the food on the table. Hekse took no notice of his discomfort. “The lengths to which you go to indulge your gluttony are repugnant. But if you’ll be happy being a little pig–no, a tub of lard from which I can siphon fat to fuel my spells, well, that seems like a fine arrangement, no?”

The princess’s expression darkened, venom pooling in her eyes. “If I disgust you so much, why bother? What difference does it make if I carry the weight and not you? Isn’t the fuel just as efficient whether it’s stored on your own body or a puppet’s?” Behind her back, she had begun to twist her wrists in Lev’s grip, slowly; the knight hadn’t noticed immediately, and perhaps that had been the point.

Hekse adopted a pitying smile. “Really? Are you so far gone that you don’t see it? Magic is a potent tool, but it is at once a curse. For in exchange for the unnatural power granted by magic, a woman must give up the natural charms with which she was born and the grace which she must cultivate like a fragile blossom in a bed of weeds; time and pleasure steal our beauty, and magic is much the same. But I have conquered the curse, my dear. By relying on the weight of others, I can keep my beauty and my power. Lesser witches and small-minded would-be's like you, rooting pathetically for scraps of power in the mud, are content to settle, content to let their beauty be robbed–or worse, they resign themselves to their basest appetites, giving in to gluttony with the excuse that it leads to power. Pfah!”

Even as the witch continued her lecture, the princess’s arms were tugging slowly free of the grip of Lev’s puppeted hands. With the puppeteer distracted by her rant, Lev prayed that the princess might actually manage to get free and do something to get them out of this mess.

If the Three were listening, however, they did not deign to lend their aid just yet. A twist of the princess’s wrist clanked softly against Lev’s armor, and the witch stopped mid-sentence. Lev’s body readjusted its grip on the princess, who tried to pull free at the last moment, in vain, then pushed the princess to the ground in a prostrate bow. Hekse frowned. “I should know better than to let you talk.”

Though her escape attempt had been thwarted, the princess continued to struggle against Lev’s grip determinedly, continued to goad their captor, though she now growled into the plush rug which blanketed the center of the room. “You’re the one who was doing all the talking, you old hag. The lengths to which you go to indulge your narrow sense of vanity are pathetic. Maybe you really do care about what sorry echoes of beauty you retain in your rotting corpse, but I think the real reason you want to keep me around as a battery is to have someone to whom to gloat, feeding your fragile ego!”

Her insults did seem to irritate the witch, but Lev saw what the princess could not, as Hekse simply gestured at the confectioner. He sprang into stiff motion, knelt down beside the vitriolic princess and pinched her nose shut while Lev’s hand stilled her head. She clamped her jaw shut, but eventually her breath gave out and the merchant poured the blood into her mouth as she gasped for air. The second phial was handed to Lev’s body, which partook of it with far less struggle, and then the three of them rose obediently after a few seconds to let the ichor run down their gullets.

“Fourth fuck you with his fetid prick, and I hope you choke on his seed and die so that nobler creatures can feast on your undeserving corpse!” It seemed the princess was still able to speak, despite the witch’s magic; Lev tried, but barely managed more than a quivering jaw. Perhaps it was a matter of willpower, or perhaps the witch was simply amused by her feeble resistance.

“Now, now,” Hekse scolded, once more donning her hyena’s smile. “Let’s fill that mouth of yours and shut you up at last.”

The princess dropped suddenly to her hands and knees and crawled to the table. Lev was forced to move alongside her, and Hekse remarked, “Time for the farmer to bring his prize pig to the feed trough. She’s looking quite starved, don’t you think?” She, of course, did not look starved in the slightest. Though far from the fattest woman Lev had ever seen, she looked as if she had never seen a day of hunger in her life, and certainly not recently. Crawling as she was, her belly was hanging down halfway to her knees, wobbling with each shuffling step and growing more visible as her garments rode up her wide flanks.

She was made to push her face into the pile of candies and treats, and her insults were muffled by a pillow of sugary confections. She did not eat, however, and when she raised her head next, her teeth were grit and her eyes were defiant. It seemed that whatever control the witch’s magic had over their bodies, it was not fine enough to coordinate eating.

Hekse pondered this, then addressed Lev. “Farmer, your pig is not eating. I’m afraid you must feed her, lest the townsfolk die of starvation this winter.” A stiffness left Lev’s limbs and the merchant lifted the knife to his neck once more. Lev was surprised at the sudden departure of the witch’s control; though bladeless, Lev’s hand itched reflexively to lunge at and throttle her, but she would doubtlessly seize control once more–and perhaps kill the confectioner–if Lev took this opportunity to attack.

Instead, Lev knelt solemnly beside the princess and searched for something small and simple to start with, settling on one of the sugar pearls the merchant had retrieved. She glared at it, then Lev, and then Hekse–then the merchant whimpered as the knife made a little crater in his neck, a hair’s breadth from breaking skin, and the princess lowered her eyes defeatedly. Lev offered it to her parted lips, and she took it between her teeth and chewed, staring quietly at the rug.

Several minutes passed like that, Lev slowly picking pieces of food from the table and giving it to the princess. Her arms had begun to tremble after a short while of standing on her hands and knees, but she bore the burden resolutely. The witch’s smile faded after the first minute, turning at first to scorn, then to boredom. Finally, she waved the merchant over, stood, and strode to the door they had entered through. The man gathered the phials filled with blood into his apron, leaving four of them on the table, then hurried after her.

“I want the contents of that table eaten before the shop opens at noon,” she stated in a flat tone as she stepped through the door. “Four hours from now–there is a clock on the wall, which I hope you can read–you will each drink one of the phials on the table, and again four hours from then. Disobey me or make any attempt to leave the room–there is a lavatory through that door there–and I will know…” she said, raising the crystal ball, which now descried the room in which they were. “…And he will die,” she finished. The man choked back a moan of despair as they left, the door locking behind them.

Free for the moment of Hekse’s direct control, the princess shifted into a kneel, and the two of them sat quietly for a while, staring at the food on the table. Barely an eighth of the food had been consumed thus far, and all of it had been relatively light confections which had crumbled and dissolved easily in the princess’s mouth.

Starting to feel the warmth of the fire which burned brightly in the room’s fireplace, Lev broke the silence by doffing bits of armor, beginning with the gauntlets. Lev did not wear a full set of plate–such a thing was prohibitively expensive–but leather, chain, and linen trapped heat quite well enough. “Will you be able to finish?” Lev asked at last, undoing the straps of one vambrace.

She looked queasy at the suggestion. “Maybe if I hadn’t already been full when we got here. But even if I had come without having eaten anything today, I wouldn’t have the appetite now.”

Lev frowned. “Forgive me, but I find that hard to believe. You demonstrated an inhuman appetite not hours ago.” Her expression darkened at that, but Lev continued. “Is it the taste?”

“No. I have a sweet tooth as good as anyone’s.”

“Then what?” Lev asked, and stood, beginning to work off the rest of the armor.

Using the table for added leverage, the princess pushed herself off the floor and walked anxiously to the floor-to-ceiling window that stood opposite the door to the hallway. It gave a fine view of the side of the next building along the row, and even if it could be opened–there was no latch–the gap between the buildings would have been too narrow for either of them to pass through. The lavatory would likely be the same.

She pulled her clothes down to fully cover her belly and crossed her arms over her middle. Lev’s brow furrowed, concerned that she would vomit, but she stood there, staring at the glass, examining her faint reflection. The ticking of the clock which hung above the hearth punctuated each quiet moment.

She spoke at last, bitterly. “I didn’t always look like this. Before I left, I was a prime example of temperance and refinement–at least, I had been taught and coerced to look and act the part. As a child, I was fat. I loved food, love it still, and my brothers and sisters teased me for it relentlessly. Even the servants would whisper when they didn’t realize I was within earshot. ‘Oh, make sure to bring enough food to Her Porkiness’s chambers, lest she cut off your head and eat it instead,’ they’d say, and laugh, and of course I would cry. The cook would find me weeping in a corner of the palace, and she’d give me something to eat to quell my tears for fear that she would face my father’s wrath if she brought me to him crying. And I, of course, ate it, because like you said, I didn’t know restraint. I was a pig of a girl, after all.”

In the process of taking off a jacket of quilted linen, Lev stopped to consider this. “...You hate the witch for calling you a pig.”

She nodded. “And forced to crawl like that, just now… for a moment I believed it, even thought, ‘How easy, how delicious it would be to play the part!’ And I hated myself then, too.”

“...I apologize for my words outside the cottage, then. Truly, this time.” When the princess did not reply, Lev continued. “Despite what she said, you are not a beast. The defiance which shone in your eyes as you faced her is not something one finds in a pig.” Lev paused. “You could still lose the weight.”

Trembling slightly, as if still struggling against a puppet-Lev’s grip, she uncrossed her arms and stood tall, and Lev was reminded of the pride she showed when they spoke outside the cottage. “No. Despite what she and others say, I am not a beast, nor a tub of lard. I am a woman. A princess. This weight–these curves, this fat, this is a sign of my prosperity. The land’s prosperity. The realm’s prosperity. It makes me powerful, and that is why people fear it. It makes me beautiful, and that is why people disparage it. Before the Pentarchy sanitized depictions of the Mother, I would have been the living image of her icons. A goddess in her ample flesh.”

Despite the grandeur of her words, Lev heard fragility in the voice with which they were delivered. A portrait made of painted glass.

After a few moments of letting her speech hang in the air, Lev approached and put a hand on the princess’s shoulder. “Your highness. I vowed to bring you home, for your father’s sake, and for my realm’s sake. I have not asked if it is for your sake. Will you return, in my company or otherwise?”

“...If I must.”

“Is that merely the answer of the second princess of House Dwyn? Or is it yours, Seren?”

The princess turned, surprised to hear her name–not just her house’s name, but her own, the one given to her on the day of her birth, and which distinguished her from her brothers and her sisters. Lev withdrew the hand, dropped into a kneeling bow, and asked once more, “Seren, will you return, in my company or otherwise?”

Despite herself, Seren smiled, a wan smile, but warm. “I will. I have found what I set out to find and held them for a while: freedom and the tools to perform magic. I shall have them again before I return, but I will return with them, and, should you prove a worthy ally, with you.“

Lev’s bow deepened, and then the knight stood, eyes full of gratitude and with a respect that hadn’t been there before. For the first time since they had met, Lev was seeing her not just as a girl who gorged herself under the pretense of being a witch, nor as a princess throwing a tantrum at the inconvenience of others, but as Seren, a woman sure of herself and of her path through this confusing world.