Something knocked on the window. Bel flinched, her eyes opened and she pulled out her dagger. Fuck. She couldn't see. Her heartbeat speed up. She swung her dagger in the air, hoping it would land on flesh. What if it was the duke. What if he did want to consummate this marriage.
She warily approached the window, before wrenching the curtains open. The meager light of the moon brightened the room just enough to see. Her arms returned to her side, there was… no one ?
She lit up a lamp to see better, and finally found the source of the noise. An injured bird was flapping its wings on the edge of the window. It probably hit the glass and was unable to fly away. She sighs, releasing just a bit of tension. She gave a nervous little laugh. All of this for a pigeon.
She opened the window to let it in. She didn't have bandages but made do with some of her clothes. She wasn't much of a nurse, but years of taking care of animals as a hobby taught her some things.
She did a makeshift splint for its wings. It was surprisingly docile for such a big bird.
" Sorry for calling you a pigeon. " She whispered.
It was definitely too big to be a pigeon, maybe too big to even be a bird. Maybe it was a demonic creature. How cute. Once the bird taken care of, she could go back to sleep.
Or at least she could technically go back to sleep. When not in a half-asleep state, she could admit it would be weird, and even impossible for the duke to go through a window on the third floor just to get some action in bed, and the door was locked. There was virtually no way for him to get in.
But the what-ifs stayed in her head, there was always a way. Even if it was irrational, she couldn't go back to sleep.
" Fuck…" She muttered under her breath.
She took out the dagger from its sheath again. Might as well practice if she wasn't going to rest.
She took her usual stance and started going through her drills. She went faster and faster. Sweat dripped down her face, her muscles burned in that familiar way she liked.
She repeated it again and again, the movements like a second nature.
Her stomach growled. She continued, paying it no mind. Eventually, the ache of hunger was just too distracting. She glared at her stomach.
The sun would soon rise anyway, but… She could wait until the sunrise, except that she would have to eat with the duke. Or Bel could ask for breakfast separately from him, but that would be admitting she was scared of the duke. And she wasn't. She wasn't scared.
Well, this was her castle's too now. If she took food from the kitchen, it wasn't exactly thievery, right?
She put on an outer dress to confront the cold outside of her room.
The door was slowly unlocked to not make any noise. She slipped out in light but warm leather slippers. Her hand tightly held a light.
Now, where was the kitchen. She wandered around to the dining room, kitchens tended to be near there. The door was luckily, unlocked, she opened it.
" Yes. " She celebrated quietly. She had found the kitchen.
She opened the many drawers for anything edible, munching on a few snacks left and right, her midnight training session had taken more out of her than she would have thought. At this stage in life, her body should be more endurant than in her earlier life, where childbirth and the imposed stop to her training had taken a toll on both her body and her mental.
Maybe she needed something more than just snacks. Her eyes wandered over to the fireplace. The fire had long died down, put it woulbe be easy enough to relit it with the lamp in her hand.
She sped up to reach the fire. Her light revealed, in the corner of the room, a small silhouette.
She stopped in her tracks. Was that a kid…?
Her light was brought closer to the silhouette's face. It was a girl, or more accurately, a very emancipated woman. Her cheeks were hollow, no fat stuck to her skeletal limbs. Her skin was white like bone, with spots a sickly yellow. Her thin hair stuck to her face with grease, some of it seemed to have been teared off in bulk.
Bel flinched back. She froze, staring at the woman. The woman stayed still, her wide eyes staring Bel down. She looked incredibly familiar. She looked like Bel. Not in the color of her hair or the shape of her nose, but in the blank look in her eyes, the bruised skin and a face aged more by the horrors of the world than by time.
The woman's chapped lips opened with difficulty.
" Help… " She begged in a raspy voice.
A silent tear went down the woman's cheek. Bel noticed a rope around her throat that tied her to a table. Bel looked around her, making sure no one was there. Her dagger was taken out, and she started cutting through the rope. The neck had rope burns severe enough that she should have stayed with it on for weeks, maybe months.
She took the woman in her arms, holding her close. Her body was much too cold. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, the woman was skinny enough for Bel to hold to her chest with one hand, leaving her other hand free to grab the lamp.
She walked as fast as she could with a woman in her arms. If the duke was behind this, she knew everyone would be on his side.
And even if it wasn't the duke, no doubt that the perpetrator would have the duke on his side.
She put down the lamp to open the door, before quickly locking it behind her.
Bel put her on the bed, covering her in blankets. Her body was worryingly cold.
" Hey. " Bel tried to start a conversation with the woman.
Her body didn't move. Once Bel held the lamp a bit closer, she found out the woman's eyes were tightly closed, her breath had evened out. Bel stopped trying to talk to her. With her condition, she needed rest more than Bel needed answers.
Still, many questions stayed in her mind. More than questions, was the fear of who did this to her, and the possibility that this could very well be one of her husband's 'mistress'. Bel had known of many men who, rather than taking on actual mistresses, took slaves who they could easily kill at the first inconvenience. Her father and second husband had been such men. In her childhood, she had remembered her father's ' mistresses ' as a good. Her mother had certainly told it as one, she had bragged about it to the other wives, who had to fight with their husband's mistresses for their power and place, while her mother could simply cut off the head of any 'mistresses' that annoyed her too much.
What could she do, if the duke was such a man ? Nothing, would have said the Bel from before. But this was now. She remembered the powerlessness she felt, the powerlessness she still feels. She had promised herself to get as much power, as much freedom as she could for this exact reason. Could she really let someone else suffer that fate, and perhaps even worst ? Her eyes wandered to the woman. Her face had softened in her sleep, yet her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks didn't speak of an easy life. It didn't speak of a life at all ; it spoke of survival, of fighting.
She delicately put a strand of the woman's hair behind her ear. She wondered what she would do when she comfirmed it was her husband. The rough leather of her dagger's sheath itched against her skin like the only soution.