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writing_shadows2011-05-29 05:07 pm
sotongeistooc.livejournal.com) wrote in writing_shadows2011-05-29 05:07 pm
[Dark Ages] Hatred and heretics
He hated her. Oh, God, how he hated her. Even the thought of her - those defiant eyes burning with unreserved contempt, that scowling visage, those strangely accented words - filled him with sharp pangs of anger. He drove his spurs deep into his horse, knowing the beast was bleeding and already galloping as fast as it dared through the sanguine night. He didn't care.
This wasn't the distant, disaffected hate he felt toward the Turks he had slain (men every one, despite her poisonous, hissed accusations he had murdered women and children). It wasn't the prickling irritation he felt toward Joplin's childish games, either; Joplin masterfully danced around him, like a chess master schooling an impudent boy, and he could at least respect that. And it wasn't the pure, cold hate he felt for his kinsman Gilbert, a feeling that manifested as a shivering malice of silent smiles and malicious wiles. This was hot anger, heat rising off his body as though he were a poker glowing in the fire. He could feel the warmth rush through his head, gushing over his senses until he could smell only blood and see only her face laughing at him.
The Heresy he could stomach, just. He had seen far too much of the world to care any more. He had seen acts of genius and depravity justified in the name of God; he knew that she believed as sincerely as he did – she just failed to realise the one helping her was Christ.
Shit, he thought, whipping the reigns in frustration as he slowed to negotiate a muddy divot. Now he was spouting heretical thoughts too. Such was her taint and infection.
It was her impudence he couldn't abide. He'd tried to warn her, but the damn gypsy witch had just become even more resistant. She had shamed him, in public, in front of Joplin and Christiano. And while Christiano saw only his rights as a High Clan of noble birth and bearing, Joplin saw a chance for amusement and delight. He'd tried to force her out of the room to tell her, mouth pressed to her ear in harsh whispers, that while he didn't care, while he was content to listen to her and treat her as an equal, he could never do it in public. That she could never answer him back with that damned impudent mouth and her sassy lines and smart words when others were present.
But the stubborn woman had simply crossed her arms and refused to move. At that moment he didn't know what to do. He couldn't hit her, could never hurt a hair on her head. And somehow she knew it. At that moment he knew he had lost. The only way to deal with such a person was reason and fairness, justice. But showing either of those traits would have cost him dear at court.
And so he'd yelled at her, scowled, and threatened, and insulted and spat. And he hated her, hated her more than he'd ever hated anyone, hated her with such an overwhelming passion he could barely control it.
She could be caught for the heretic she was, hanged at a crossroads,buried where her spirit would gain no rest, for all he cared. Because she had dared to suggest it was all because he wanted her. And that was the wound that burned most of all.
This wasn't the distant, disaffected hate he felt toward the Turks he had slain (men every one, despite her poisonous, hissed accusations he had murdered women and children). It wasn't the prickling irritation he felt toward Joplin's childish games, either; Joplin masterfully danced around him, like a chess master schooling an impudent boy, and he could at least respect that. And it wasn't the pure, cold hate he felt for his kinsman Gilbert, a feeling that manifested as a shivering malice of silent smiles and malicious wiles. This was hot anger, heat rising off his body as though he were a poker glowing in the fire. He could feel the warmth rush through his head, gushing over his senses until he could smell only blood and see only her face laughing at him.
The Heresy he could stomach, just. He had seen far too much of the world to care any more. He had seen acts of genius and depravity justified in the name of God; he knew that she believed as sincerely as he did – she just failed to realise the one helping her was Christ.
Shit, he thought, whipping the reigns in frustration as he slowed to negotiate a muddy divot. Now he was spouting heretical thoughts too. Such was her taint and infection.
It was her impudence he couldn't abide. He'd tried to warn her, but the damn gypsy witch had just become even more resistant. She had shamed him, in public, in front of Joplin and Christiano. And while Christiano saw only his rights as a High Clan of noble birth and bearing, Joplin saw a chance for amusement and delight. He'd tried to force her out of the room to tell her, mouth pressed to her ear in harsh whispers, that while he didn't care, while he was content to listen to her and treat her as an equal, he could never do it in public. That she could never answer him back with that damned impudent mouth and her sassy lines and smart words when others were present.
But the stubborn woman had simply crossed her arms and refused to move. At that moment he didn't know what to do. He couldn't hit her, could never hurt a hair on her head. And somehow she knew it. At that moment he knew he had lost. The only way to deal with such a person was reason and fairness, justice. But showing either of those traits would have cost him dear at court.
And so he'd yelled at her, scowled, and threatened, and insulted and spat. And he hated her, hated her more than he'd ever hated anyone, hated her with such an overwhelming passion he could barely control it.
She could be caught for the heretic she was, hanged at a crossroads,buried where her spirit would gain no rest, for all he cared. Because she had dared to suggest it was all because he wanted her. And that was the wound that burned most of all.
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