For Whom...
A short-short story

by Kimber

Hannah stood behind the door of the chamber, every breath she dragged into her straining chest burning like white hot needles. She strained her ears to hear over the pounding of her heart. Pressing her face against the huge oak door she was only slightly grateful for the cool relief on her sweating skin. 'He's out there.' The words made a loud sing song cacophony in her brain. She sent a silent prayer heavenward and turned to see what room she had ducked into.
It was the trophy room. Heads of other unfortunate prey this man had captured lined the wall, their blank glass eyes staring at her as if to say, "You will join us here soon. We know your pain and this is it's only end." No hiding places. Nothing to detract from the focal points of this room. She began to look for something to wield in her final futile act of defense. Throwing open drawers and small boxes, looking behind tapestries and finding not so much as a table fork she began to despair and consign her soul to God. As she turned to the one barred window to take her last look at the world she once walked freely in and loved, a glint caught her eye. Under that window was a solitary chair and from the back of that chair hung a scabbard.
The short sword in it was not as heavy as she had feared at first glance. After crossing the room and assuring herself the door was still bolted she walked back to the window and clutched the handle of the sword to her chest. Her thoughts went to her mother and the lands she roamed as a child. Life is so precious. We never think about that until it comes to a time like this, when we are forced to leave it. When they met, she had thought he understood this. She had thought he understood a great many things that she now knew were as alien to him as flying would be to her.
She had come to the keep a mear 3 months earlier and at her tender age had believed only the best of her new husband. He set her aside apartments in the east wing of the castle so she could enjoy the morning sunshine in her garden and with her ladies to attend her there was never much need to stray beyond those walls. He came to visit her often and talked with her, ate meals with her and seemed to enjoy her company. When she overheard the stories told about him by some of the servants who brought the meals, she dismissed them as tales told by lazy and mean people jealous of their master. It wasn't until she had wandered from the sanctuary of her rooms and saw that they were true that she tried to make her escape. Never could she live with this man. Never bear him children. Better to flee to the wood and be food for the wolves. Nothing was left in her heart for him but hate and fear.
The sun was starting to set outside the window and she was trying to imprint the sight on her brain in case God allowed her to take those pictures with her to heaven. The steps could now be heard. He was approaching the door. Quietly she spun and held out the sword. It wouldn't take him long to get through that door. She counted the number of crashes against the wood as the number of minutes in her life. Splinters began to fly and the door soon fell in two large peices on the floor. He filled the portal completely. A figure that she once looked on as pleasingly masculine now looked to her brutish and barbaric. She couldn't look into his eyes. She concentrated on a spot in the middle of his massive chest and pointed the sword there. Her small, fragile frame trembled with fear and effort and her breathing again began to accelerate.
"Why do you do this?" he asked in a deceptively quiet voice. "Why do you run from me and treat me as the devil himself? I have done nothing but love you. I have supplied you with every imaginable pleasure, you want for nothing." He began to take small, measured steps toward her and she tightened her grip on the handle of the sword.
"You do not know what love is. You are an animal. No better than these creatures you have displayed here for your pleasure. You treat life, animal and human, as so much dirt under your heel. You trade in human misery and despair. How can I live with and love a man who would do what I have seen you do?"
"I am just a man, my love. I know only what I know. This is how my fathers and grandfathers ruled and it is how I will rule. It has nothing to do with you or my feelings for you. These are seperate things. I have never felt sympathy for life, it's true, but I love you. I know it is love because I have never felt this before. I only want to live for you and your happiness. This is the only way I know to do it. I have supplied you with a home and surroundings far removed from what I do. None of it has or ever will disturb you there. Please, my sweet life, let me love you again. Let me see the light in your face when I enter the room. Let me come near you and smell the fresh air in your hair."
"Never." She said, pressing her back against the wall as he steadily approached with his arm outstretched to her. She still pressed the blade out toward him and refused to look in his eyes. "You will never see me again. I will never love you. I can't stand the sight of you. If I can't kill you now I will kill myself later rather than have you touch me again." Her face set as if stone and she finally looked up into those steely blue eyes she remembered from the first day at the fair when she saw him. She had first fallen into those pools and thought she would never breathe again. Bitter laughter rose in her throat as she remembered the feeling then that she knew the soul enshrined in those brilliant orbs. A sob choked her as he reached out and grasped the blade. He had her gaze locked with his. She steeled herself for the vain fight she would have to put up for the sword....
But it never came. She continued to stare into his eyes as he held the blade steady and continued to approach. Finally through her fear and rage she noticed his face was wet with what seemed to be tears. She was confused and angry for her confusion, but she couldn't free herself from his gaze. Slowly she began to feel backward pressure on the sword. His face never changed but his eyes had taken on a look of endless greif and sorrow. He continued to approach, and somewhere in her mind she wondered how this could be. But so lost was she now in the spectacle of this man, a man she had seen sending children to their deaths, now showing these symptoms of humanity that she failed to realize what was happening.
His free hand came up slowly and touched her cheek, caressed her hair. A faint smile touched his lips and his eyes lightened a bit. His breath was coming harshly now and she felt something warm and wet on her hand. She forced her gaze away and looked down at the almost forgotten sword in her hand. He brought his bloody fingers up and grasped her tiny hands. In one motion he pulled her hands toward himself and he made one final step toward her. He brought her face up again to look at him. "I will always love you. You are my light and my life. Without you, there is nothing."
She released the hilt of the sword and tried to support him as he fell.
His breathing was ragged now. "Someday, perhaps, you will remember me as you knew me when we married. Before you knew me as I really am, and you will like me again, a little."
Hannah closed his eyes and sat on the cold floor with his head in her lap.